NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 24 – Cat Gets Blackmailed, Threatens Retribution
Chapter 24
Yoruichi made her way into the office of the Fleet Admiral, Sengoku, with all the confidence a Shinigami at the age of almost 400 could muster.
As soon as the doors opened, 3 heads inside turned to look at her. Sengoku, who was behind his desk, glared at her, and stood up, along with Tsuru, who was sitting in a chair off to Yoruichi’s left. Garp as always was sitting on the couch in the corner, snacking on his crackers.
“Ah, you finally deigned to show up.” Sengoku said, his glare trying its best to pierce her skull. Said glare turned from angry to slightly confused, when Yoruichi simply ignored everyone in the room, and sat down next to Garp on the couch, and snatched the crackers out of his hand, and started munching on them herself.
Garp, the enterprising man he was, just shrugged wordlessly and pulled another sleeve from his jacket pocket.
Yoruichi, after taking a handful of crackers and stuffing her face with them, looked over at the slightly flabbergasted man and said impassively, “Oh, were you talking to me? You’re not my boss, so I assumed you were talking to someone else.” She then looked down at the crackers, and then at Garp.
“Damn, these things aren’t bad.” She said impressed. “I see why you can’t loose weight now.”
Garp, who was about to say something, most likely in acceptance of her liking his favorite snack, choked on his own words at the second part. “Bahahuawgh??! I can loose weight just fine!” the old man cried. “All of this is just muscle!”
Yoruichi just fisted another bunch of crackers and shook her head. “You look like someone attacked limbs to a bowling ball.” she said sagely.
Garp threw his hands up, the crackers coming precariously close to exploding. “What the hell is a bowling ball? And why does that sound insulting?!” he sputtered.
Yoruichi gave him a ‘you’re the dumbest person on the planet’ look. She said sarcastically, “Aww, did that hurt your feewings? Maybe you should go get them checked out by the nurse. Oh wait. They wouldn’t be able to see through your fat ass anyway!”
This time Garp shot out of his seat, turning on the petite woman. Neither of them noticed (i.e cared) about the other two people in the room, one of whom was turning purple, and another who was turning beet red in anger.
“Will you two SHUT UP?!!!” Tsuru roared, standing up so quickly the chair she was sitting on fell over backwards from the force.
She then pointed forcefully at Yoruichi, almost as if she just couldn’t wait to punch the purple haired woman right in the face, and said, “You, are here to discuss your punishment for infiltrating a highly classified meeting. The ONLY reason you are not in sea-stone chains is because Garp, as much as I hate to say this, has some sway around here, and thinks you won’t run off on your own. I’m of the opinion that because you already have once before, we should chain you to a wall in impel down and leave you there to rot.”
Not leaving the werecat any time to respond, the woman turned on Garp, who was frozen in a very awkward position, half turned to attack Yoruichi, but also half cowering from the harsh assault that was going to come from his longtime friend.
“And YOU!” Tsuru shouted, somehow getting even louder. “You are a Vice Admiral! I do not know how many times I have told you, and will have to tell you in the future, but you have STANDARDS. You should FOLLOW THEM FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE!”
Tsuru then stopped, took a deep breath, and sat down again. “Now. We are here to talk about miss Yoruichi’s punishment. Due to her – “
Yoruichi cut the woman off, slightly incensed at being yelled at like a small child. “Let me stop you there. Why am I here? It certainly isn’t because I recognize any imaginary authority you think you have over me.” The werecat then leaned back on the couch and put her legs up on the table. “Now while this is a really comfortable office, I will say that the only reason I came here originally was because I would consider Mr. Monkey pants over there a friend, and I figured he wanted to show his job off. He has been making moves to try and recruit me, so I understand.”
The exiled Shinigami Captain put her hands behind her head and tilted her head over toward the still purple Fleet Admiral. ‘Damn, he’s starting to look a little unhealthy over there. Wonder how long it will take him to feint.’
She continued with her little rant, keeping an eye on the Fleet Admiral who was starting to give off a slight golden hue for some reason. “Anyway, you have no actual authority over me. So why exactly do you think you can punish me like I am one of your soldiers?”
She should have been worried about what was going to happen next when she saw Sengoku suddenly gain his more normal complexion, and then smile something evil at her.
The man sat down, and steepled his fingers in front of his face, his golden glow still there. “Why do we think we can punish you?” the man asked, not even glancing at the other two people in the room, his steely eyed stare at the ‘victim’ like they were alone in his office.
“Besides the fact that you are not invincible, our reports from your little tussle with Kuzan showing ample evidence of that, you currently reside in the headquarters of the military arm of the World Government. You are always under our jurisdiction, regardless of whether you want to be or not. Comes with being the only global power, you see.”
‘Yeah, really should have expected something was up when he flipped the switch like that.’ Yoruichi thought dryly. She didn’t say anything as the man seemed intent on continuing, which he did a moment later with a feral smile.
“There is also the little tidbit about you breaking our laws and regulations, within our own headquarters, own our own territory.” Sengoku leaned back into his chair. “I’m sure whatever entity you are alluding to being a part of, that Garp still hasn’t told me about, would love to just throw you under the bus for a favor from the Fleet Admiral.” Sengoku finished with a smug smile on his braided goateed face.
Both of them ignored the “Oi! I don’t know where she came from either!” from Garp, and initiated a stare off. After a moment, Yoruichi broke the silence and started chuckling.
“Hehe-ahahah…. You are pretty good with that aren’t you.” Yoruichi said in between laughter. “You think my ‘organization’ which for some reason you think I am a part of would bend over backward to get a favor from you? Hahahaha. I really would like to tell that old geezer that, just so see him disintegrate you.” She kept laughing for a moment more, as Tsuru picked up on her words.
“Old Geezer you say? So, you are part of an organization. Garp had thought you were, from what he picked up from your conversations, but why would you confirm it?” Tsuru asked, intrigued.
Yoruichi was still chuckling lightly, and she glanced over to where the wrinkled woman was sitting. “The only reason I did was because if you all actually wanted to punish me, I wouldn’t be sitting here without any form of restraints on me. You want something from me, and you think that being ‘amicable’ to me will help you get it.” She turned to face the woman fully, and grinned toothily, almost like her spirit partner. “So, am I right? What is it you want from me?”
There was an audible sigh from the two people in the room she barely knew, and a guffaw from Garp. “Bahaha. She got you good.” The man then stood up, having finished his sleeve of crackers, and stretched. Once he was done, he turned and matched Yoruichi’s grin.
“Simply put, we, or- well, they, want you to kill someone.” He said, his tone completely at odds with his ask of her.
Yoruichi raised an eyebrow at Garp, glancing at the other two. ‘Seriously? I know he’s an idiot but what made him just say it?’ she thought incredulously.
Yoruichi knew she was someone who had no qualms killing people, as it was the main distinction of the Omnitsukido. But they don’t know that. ‘So why do they want me to kill someone? And for that matter, who?’ she got slightly lost in her own thoughts, and then snapped her eyes back over to Tsuru.
“You seem like the planner in the room, soooo what does he mean by that?” Yoruichi asked, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at Garp.
Both Tsusu and Sengoku had deflated entirely. They honestly looked like someone had just sucked all the air out of a blow-up person and left them lying on their chairs.
After a moment of silence, with Yoruichi getting slightly uncomfortable, both of them popped back into existence, with Tsuru jumping up out of her chair.
“That’s enough outa you!” She cried, immediately dashing forward with her hand outstretched.
Garp was too distracted by his grinning at Yoruichi to evade the woman’s grasp. However, Yoruichi was expecting Garp to get suplexed or something, not what happened next.
As soon as Tsuru touched him, Garp immediately turned paper thin, and started sparkling like someone had just cleaned him top to bottom. She then threw him over her shoulder with a humph, and walked out the door, slamming it loudly behind her.
Yoruichi just stared dumbfounded at what she witnessed. ‘The fuck just happened?’ she screamed into her own mind; her eyes widened in shock. ‘Was that a devil fruit? It must have been, I’ve never seen anything else do that.’ She started going through her memories of the brief incident.
‘It was almost like he got pressed flat and then washed…. But what the hell kind of devil fruit does that? Theyre based off concepts, aren’t they? Fire, rubber, light, wood. Did she wash him or something?’ She was quite surprised at the variations that could come out of devil fruits.
‘How does that even fall into how they work?’ she thought, her previous experiments coming to mind. ‘Most all other devil fruits I have seen affect the person themselves, not someone else’
She left the thoughts on how devil fruits, and how they keep getting weirder to later, as she had bigger things to deal with.
Turning to Sengoku, she smiled politely. “Well, now that that’s done, could you answer my question? I really want to know who the Fleet Admiral of the marines wants dead.”
Sengoku just grumbled to himself, before he sat down in his chair, and pulled out a file from a drawer in his desk.
He started talking, seemingly calmer than the other two. “As you may know, Garp’s original intention was to get you inducted into the marines. To be honest with you, I cannot blame him. Your little fight with Borsalino has already reached my ears. For someone who doesn’t have Haki, you fight at quite the high level.
However, you have shown a propensity to not care about the rules in the brief time we have interacted.” He was cut off by a snort from Yoruichi, but he ignored it and continued. “From what Garp has told me, you possess a skillset quite suited to covert work, quite similar to the Cypher Pol organization of the World Government.” He cut off, looking at her with narrowed eyes.
It took only a moment for Yoruichi to guess at what he was insinuating. She scoffed at his implication. “Really.” she said disdainfully. “You think I am some sort of secret government spy? Hahahahaha. I don’t even know what Cypher Pol is!”
She looked at Sengoku, who had a slight frown on his face. “Hmm, I suppose you do have more emotional range than the average CP agent…”
The purple haired Shinigami’s eyebrows narrowed in confusion. ‘The hell is that supposed to mean?! Did he just call me dull?’ she thought incredulously.
She quickly cut in before the man had any more chance to speak, saying, “Get to the point, Sengoku, or I’m just gonna leave and you’ll never see me again.” She leaned back into the couch, and crossed her arms, with one leg going over another.
The seagull hat wearing man chuckled dryly, and said, “Fine. Originally this was going to be an ask of you as an extension to what Garp had asked you to do in the east blue, except you would be looking for one specific person, instead of general marine corruption. However, with your little stunt in Marie Jois, some of the Warlords have gotten a bit, shall we say, restless. One man in particular, Doflamingo, one of the warlords who you would have seen at the meeting, has gotten into touch with an old enemy of the Marines.”
Sengoku paused and flipped open the folder that he had pulled out, and pushed it toward Yoruichi.
Yoruichi picked it up, and looked through the papers. There were normal reports on actions someone had taken throughout the years, along with a picture. It was a tall, old man, around Garp and Sengoku’s age, with an extremely long set of hair, going down to his knees.
The most interesting parts about him were a few things. First, he had no legs. Secondly, he had replaced said legs with a pair of swords, which he somehow stood upright on within the picture. And third…
“Is that a fucking helm in his head?!” Yoruichi cried, picking up the picture of the man to get a closer look.
Sengoku laughed outright at that. “Hahaha… Yes, it is a helm. He got it in a battle in which he lost against the Pirate King, Gold Roger, which is now known as the Edd War.
His name is Shiki the Golden Lion, because of his mane of golden hair. He is a former member of a crew I would rather not bring up, but it was the same one that Kaido, Whitebeard, and Big Mom belonged to. He is also the only person to have ever broken out of Impel Down, the Marine corprison.” Sengoku said, leaning forward enough to cover his eyes with the brim of his hat.
Yoruichi looked closer at the picture, getting an idea of what the man was like. “He sawed off his legs to escape, didn’t he?” she asked tentatively. The picture was quite bad, and taken during what looked to be a really bad time for one.
Sengoku nodded his head. “He did, yes. He is the wielder of the Fuwa-Fuwa no mi, which allows him to nullify gravity on anything he touches. As a member of the Ro-, a certain group of pirates, he had trained his ability to the point of awakening it, allowing him to unleash power able to rival that of Whitebeard’s destructive power.” Sengoku sighed, stood up, and walked over to a window.
Yoruichi got up and followed, interested in where this was going now. Standing behind the Fleet Admiral, who looked quite desolate in the frame of the window, standing there with his body hunched over slightly, like he was bearing the weight of the world and barely holding it up.
“Shiki was originally imprisoned for attacking Marineford in an attempt to verify if Gold Roger was captured, in the process destroying half of the town behind the base itself. He then broke out some years later when he heard about the ‘Great Pirate Era’. He still remains at large to this day, being the only person to have ever escaped.” Sengoku finished in a solemn voice, overlooking the small town that could be barely seen behind the Marine Base from Sengoku’s window.
Yoruichi stayed behind him, her arms crossed as she stood with her weight on one leg.
She just asked again, “And what exactly does this have to do with me?”
Sengoku turned around again to walk back to his desk. He pulled out another file, which was much thinner than the one on Shiki. “This is your file.” Sengoku said, flipping absently through the papers inside. “Obviously you do not have much history, since you will tell us almost nothing about where you came from or who you really are, but we do have a good analysis of your skills from Garp. High speed, enough to rival Borsalino, durability high enough to equal an advanced armament haki, and some sort of energy bolts that can be molded to do certain things.”
Sengoku stopped talking for a moment and glanced up at Yoruichi, who was now standing in front of his desk with her arms still crossed. She raised an eyebrow in question, but he just glanced back down and continued. “Most of those abilities are suspected to be from the Neko-Neko no mi, Model Sith, with a close to awakening usage allowing for some malleability to their blessing and cursing abilities.”
Both of Yoruichi’s eyebrows raised at that. ‘They seriously have a devil fruit that can do Kido? What the hell? And it’s a cat?’ she thought in surprise. ‘I really need to go and test more devil fruits in depth, this is getting insane. First elementals, then someone got flattened, now there is a cat that does kido. Great.’
Sengoku kept talking, flipping through more reports, most of which were from Garp, unknowing of Yoruichi’s internal surprise. “You have the covert operations capabilities that remind me of a shinobi of Wano, combined with a CP agent. Where you got these skills, we do not know, nor do we know of your direct methods. All we have are your notes from your task Garp asked you to complete some months ago.” He finished by picking the folder up in his hands and tapping them a few times against the desk, before putting them away in the desk, leaving the Shiki file still open to the side.
Sengoku once more steepled his hands and looked over them at Yoruichi. “To answer your question, The Marine corps wants you to investigate Shiki the Golden Lion’s involvement with the underworld broker known as Joker, who has been known to supply many pirates with various weapons, ammunition, and other supplies, and if possible, eliminate him.”
Yoruichi hummed in thought for a moment, then quickly reached out to the chair Tsuru was sitting in earlier and pulled it closer to the desk, before sitting in it. She then snatched the file off the desk and started flipping through it.
‘Hmmm.’ She thought pensively, ‘He was really downplaying this man’s ability. “Sighted levitating multiple Islands off the South Blue side of the Red Line”? If he could get islands that high, he could cause mass devastation by just letting them go. What was the term for people like him again? “Island Destroyer”?’ She kept flipping through the documents, examining every detail with a critical eye well honed through years of investigations as a Division 2 member.
‘Rival to Gold Roger, member of the former Redacted pirate crew, along with Charlotte ‘Big Mom’ Linlin, and Kaido ‘The King of Beasts’, and Edward ‘Whitebeard’ Newgate, 3 of the four current Yonko, charismatic and crafty leader of a large pirate crew stationed on floating islands only briefly spotted when going for supply runs, extremely talented and experienced in swordplay, as well as one of the most durable people in the world, near the levels of Kaido, being able to cripple himself and take a helm made entirely of Adam Wood getting stuck in his skull and still able to fight at a high level.’ Yoruichi read silently, assessing the man’s capabilities against her own. ‘Why do I feel like Sengoku just wants to send me off to my death? He definitely does not have a good read on my full capabilities, only my most recent fight with Kizaru would be able to tell him something more about me.’
She finished reading after only a few moments, and looked up at Sengoku. “What is the point of you asking me to do this?” she asked, getting straight to the point. “You claim to be the world’s foremost power, with everyone else being too ‘ragtag and disorganized’ to truly fight against you. Why not deal with him yourself?”
Sengoku sighed once more, showing the slightest expression of defeat. “While that is what we tell the public, we are not that overwhelming in power. There are areas where we cannot reach, whether due to manpower, or climate. This includes the sky, which Shiki has been known to use as his ‘base of operations’ so to speak.”
He then reached into his desk drawer once again and pulled out a map, one that looked to be quite detailed. Yoruichi quickly memorized as much as possible of it, while barely paying attention to Sengoku’s words. “This is a map of the world, with as many islands discovered on it as possible. These islands” he pointed his finger at a few islands in both the South and West Blue, “Have been noted as ‘Disappeared’ or ‘Vanished’ by the locals, with not a sign of the people who lived on said islands.”
Yoruichi caught onto his point almost immediately. “You expect Shiki is arming himself with bombs, in the shape of an island, don’t you?” she asked, looking at the fleet admiral’s steely eyed gaze.
Sengoku nodded, and said quietly, “Yes. 7 islands, all classified as medium or small, taken in the last 5 years. All of them in the Blues, with very slight contact to other islands, and only being noted as gone due to merchant ship arrivals not being able to find the islands.”
Yoruichi nodded absentmindedly to what he was saying. “You think he is arming himself with weapons to use against the marines, and is getting this Joker to assist in gathering weapons, and other supplies, correct?”
Sengoku grimaced but nodded anyway. “That is the case. With your little stunt at the Warlord Meeting, and Doflamingo shouting out that the marines have been embarrassed, and are weaker than they appear to anyone who can hear, we believe Shiki will take the news literally and start dropping islands on Marine bases.”
Yoruichi raised an eyebrow at the man. ‘Did me sleeping on his head seriously cause that much damage to their reputation? How do you get that fragile in the first place, that a man being seen with a cat can cause pirates to go crazy?’ she thought incredulously.
She tossed the file back on the desk and leaned back, with her hands going behind her head. “So, you have spouted off about why this man needs to go, but why should I be the one doing it?” she asked, a little smirk playing on her lips.
That smirk dropped immediately when Sengoku gave her one of his own and pulled out a piece of paper. She had seen many of these before, usually tacked onto sign posts, bulletin boards, and behind bars.
It was a wanted poster, with a sketch of herself, drawn pretty accurately, if a little ‘bigger’ than she was, with purple hair and tanned skin. Shade Yoruichi the bounty poster that seemed to be made for her said. Wanted, Dead or Alive, $550,000,000.
Yoruichi scoffed out a wheezy laugh at the sight. “Heh. Are you seriously threatening me with slapping a wanted poster on my ass? What the hell kind of name is ‘Shade’ anyway? Couldn’t you use my, you know, actual title?” she said, her suspended disbelief obvious.
Sengoku was now smiling slightly cruelly. “Garp told me about why you wanted to travel around. What was it, a, vacation? How would you like to be hounded by every single island’s police force, population, and the marines for the rest of your life?” he said, his smile breaking out into a full grin.
Yoruichi paused for a moment, and actually thought about what it would mean to have a bounty. ‘He is kind of right’ she thought, ‘I wouldn’t be able to access most islands freely, and I do not want to annoy myself any more than necessary by crossing the Grand Line by running, since I wouldn’t get passage on any ship. While I could disappear as a cat for a while, at least until Kisuke gets off his ass and comes and gets me, I would be probably hounded to the end of the world. That is much too annoying to deal with for declining to deal with one guy.
She sighed in resignation and looked the still grinning Fleet Admiral in the eye. “Fine, you’ve made a good point. Do you have any information on his current whereabouts?” she said and pushed her chair back and stood up.
Sengoku laughed in triumph. “Hahaha! Garp owes me 10,000 Berri! He said you would refuse out of pure annoyance! Hahaha!” he cried, his hands going up in the air.
Yoruichi just looked at him with the deadest deadpan face that could ever exist. “Are you seriously celebrating blackmailing someone into killing someone else?” she asked dully.
When he didn’t stop laughing, she just sighed in resignation and mumbled to herself, “Fine, I guess ill go ask the wrinkled hag outside the door for the information. Have a horrid day, seagull head. I hope one shits on your hat.”
She left without further acknowledgement, flinging open the doors to Sengoku’s office to see both Garp and Tsuru sitting outside, obviously having just listened in to their conversation.
“You heard me in there, right?” Yoruichi asked, glaring at Tsuru. After she got a nod in agreement, she kept walking, and said, “Give the information to Garp, I will be first going to find Sengoku’s room to tear it to shreds before I go take a nap. He will know where to find me.” The disgruntled Shinigami left, her head aimed at the floor, muttered words that should never be heard by children coming out of her mouth.