Out for Karma: One Piece

Chapter 28: Goodbye, Halcyon days

Rick was discharged just in time for the trip back to Alabasta, thanks to the low regeneration of his imperfect body V2.

‘I should have remembered : “ Don’t put your Rick in crazy!’

While he was in the infirmary Tsuru, Garp, and Sengoku smiled.

Kaza has been there for a few hours, listening to Rick telling her about the 7 years they were apart.

Tsuru was looking coldy at her. Kaza could only blushed and turned her head away. No tomato was ever that red.

Sengoku had a smudged face.

Seeing Rick’s smile going ear to ear.

Garp asked in a jest the Doc if he could have what he gave his grandson for such a smile.

Kaza and Tsuru gave him such a look, Garp froze and dropped his fake cookie to the ground.

“You’ll never get any, sir.”

Yep, Garp didn’t know how Rick ended in the infirmary.

Sengoku just lost it and had a fit of laughter which stopped immediately when Tsuru smacked him behind the head. Hard.

~~~~~

On the journey back to the Kingdom of sand, a small fleet of pirates ship were stupid enough to try to raid the Alabastan ship.

Before they even reached 50 feet away Rick had sunk them all with his gravity.

The rest of the journey was peaceful.

~~~~~~

The Royal family was back home.

Vivi wanted Rick to stay a bit more as her birthday was coming soon, but he couldn’t.

“Don’t worry Vivi, I already gave your present to your father.”

“Really? But when? We were always together Daddy and me.”

“Before we left for the Reverie.”

“Can I know what it is?”

“Nope, It won’t be a surprise if I tell you, besides it’s bad luck!”

She wasn’t happy about it but she won’t have long to wait.

She tried one last time to make him stay. She was crying this time.

“Vivi, I got a feeling, that one day, we’ll meet again. So it’s not really a goodbye but more like… a see you later?”

He smiled, patted her head and after saluting the king, Igaram, Chaka and Pell, simply left.

With everything going on, he didn’t have the time to properly celebrate his own birthday. Vivi had gifted him a bracelet on their way to Mary Geoise.

Rick had thought that Kaza’s gift was… what put him in the infirmary. But she assured him it was not.

“That was just a 7 years long fix I needed. You’ll have your gift when we really have more time together” she had said with a knowing smile.

The small party with Sengoku, Garp and Tsuru was delayed as she had to go on an urgent mission.

Rick was in this room thinking.

‘I need to revise the plan I made when I came into this world.’

Rick’s idea at the time was to get trained by the marine, get a lot of Karma along the way, then when the time was right to quit the corps and join Luffy’s crew. By being a pirate he would have more freedom to act. And he could deal properly with the corrupted marine that was nothing more than a dog to the celestial dragons.

What he didn’t take into consideration was that he would come to care for the people he had met.

Garp had become his grandpa, nothing more and nothing less.

Sengoku and Aokiji, both teachers and friends, looked at for him in his darkest moments.

His big sis Tsuru, who he’s spent the most time with and had learned so much from. More than Aokiji and Sengoku combined. 

And of course Kaza. She had always been in his corner since the day she met her and now was his lover.

He wasn’t sure anymore that he could really leave the marine.

‘Perhaps, I don’t have to?’

He was searching for ways to fulfill his mission while still having the opportunity to enjoy his life.

So far he had not had any ideas to make it happen.

~~~~~~~

Kaza’ gift was well liked by Rick.  After a very intense “training” session with her he was spent. Kaza just excused herself for a few minutes and came back wearing the prettiest lingerie set he had ever seen.

The bright red color matched her drape perfectly.

The sight was so endearing for him, that he had a second wind.

This time he didn’t end in the infirmary, but Kaza did.

‘Now that’s what poetic justice is all about’.

Tsuru finally came back and they could celebrate.

When the little party ended Garp was completely wasted and laying down on the cold floor in a corner of Sengoku’s living room.

The fleet admiral did not drink that much, but thanks to his job was pretty tired and was out for the count on one of his couches.

Only Tsuru and Rick were left, both a bit tipsy. They were sitting really close to each other on the couch opposite to Sengoku’s

“You know big sis…”

“What?”

“I’m all grown up now.”

“I have notice, you’re now an handsome and dashing marine, gone is the cute and adorable little boy”

“Thanks. But you now, that means I can finally marry you.”

Tsuru laughed softly.

“Aaahhh! I remember like it was yesterday, 6 years old you sitting on this very couch saying that you’ll marry me and kiss me on the cheek. Your feet barely touched the floor”.

“So, Interested or not?” he winked at her.

 She slapped his chest.

“Don’t tempt me, you rascal.”

“Or what?”

She didn’t have an answer to that.

Rick leaned over her and kissed her.

That was not a chaste kiss.

Tsuru was too shocked to move, but as he kept kissing her, she answered back his advance.

She had pondered for a moment and came to a conclusion

‘Why not? I won’t marry him for sure, but if he wants to have some fun with an old lady like me…’

Once they stopped kissing, they looked at each other's eyes. There was a burning passion, a burning lust.

They both stood up and hurried towards her private quarters.

That night, Tsuru washed him up good and without the use of her Washo Washo no mi.

Rick learned many things from this special time with her. Among them, two stood out the most.

One, that older women’s sex drive was seriously no joke

Two, that he really needed to do something about his dislocating hips of his.

~~~~~

The official story was that Rick, because he was drunk, fell down and hurt himself again after walking back Tsuru to her private quarters.

Because she herself  drank a bit too, she was feeling too hot to sleep, so she dressed back and left her room to enjoy the sea breeze and the dawning sun with a walk when she found Rick.

Kaza still in the infirmary since she didn’t have Rick’s regenerative abilities, squinted her eyes.

‘Suspicious…’

That story was fishy for her.

But she couldn’t read anything from Tsuru’s impassive face. Neither from her lover’s. He was asleep.

Actually he just had his eyes closed and was reminiscing about last night

events.

‘Back to the infirmary, great…. Well it doesn’t matter, had snu-snu’

Tsuru, for her part, was having more and more trouble keeping her poker face up before Kaza’s stare.

In the end she excused herself claiming that she has worked to do.

Her mind was in turmoil.

‘I should not have done that! I’m the Ice queen of the marines! I break young men with just a glare, not sleep with them! But I really needed that… Girl it was Rick! Not some anonymous sailor that you won’t see again! He was good though, he really scratched that itch. Not bad for an old gal...”

She was going back and forth into their head, finding her behavior unacceptable then was justifying herself.

In the end she didn’t regret doing it, and her last thought  before entering Sengoku’s office was:

‘I wonder if Rick would like to go at it again’.

~~~~~~

Rick was out of the infirmary before Kaza.

Aokiji had been sent to the New World for a secret mission and wouldn't be out for a while, so Rick was without a crew.

Not for long though as Sengoku put Rick under Tsuru’s care one again. Garp refused to sail without Kaza. Not by loyalty for her, but because without her he would have to do all the annoying things of his job.

Rick would alter between the two vice-admiral’s crew for about a year.

It took a bit of time but Rick had broken through Tsuru’s defenses. While traveling with her, he never spent a single night anywhere else than her bed. They were so discreet that no marines on board knew what was going on between them.

When he was with Garp the same thing happened with Kaza.

She caught Rick and Tsuru one night back at Marineford.

She was not happy about it but finally tolerated the relationship by stating.

“I understand, after having me, Rick can’t stop himself anymore, at least it’s you Vice admiral Tsuru, and not some whores from some island port”.

Tsuru, too happy about her acceptance, didn't bother to break her out of her disillusionment. 

Finally it was time to leave the marine, not because Rick wanted to but because he had to.

Sengoku had said that once his break was over he would start learning Haki.

If it came to be known that he couldn’t use Haki, things might not go well. Even though it was just a possibility Rick didn’t want to take any chances.

But he didn’t want to up and leave without a trace like that. Rick wanted to properly quit the marine. 

Learning that some members of Garp’s crew were going to Sabaody Archipelago for their break, he saw his opportunity and left with them.

‘For once in their lives the celestial dragons would be useful for something’.

It didn’t take him long to find one of the world's nobles. 

Rick saw him shoot a man and proceed to force himself on her, in front of his victim that was bleeding out.

Rick’s expression turned cold. He knew that the celestial dragons were the kind of the worst scum there was. He knew that, what he was seeing was the sort of thing he expected to see.

Yet now that he was actually seeing it his anger surged! He was about to rip that punny noble apart when he was restrained on the ground by multiple members of Garp’s crew.

“Don’t do that Rick, it’s a world noble” said one

“Let me go! I’m gonna kill that motherducker!”

“I know how you feel, but you’ll get all of us killed if you lay a finger on that bastard.” said another.

They could feel Rick trying to break free with all his strength. If they moved an inch they knew they would be doomed.

Rick was forced to hear the pleas and screams of the woman for the next 10 minutes before the noble was done with his business and shot her dead claiming unhappily that she wasn’t as good as she looked.

It was only when the scum was long gone that Rick was released.

He looked at his fellow marines with contempt in his eyes.

He then used this gravity on a nearby rock, climbed up on it and flew at great speed towards Marineford.

On the way, he calmed himself a bit.

‘The first part of the plan may have succeed but what a fucking shitty part it was!  Now How should I play it….’

~~~~~~ 

He blew away the door of Sengoku’s office, and entered with righteous fury!

There was Sakazuki in the room but Rick ignored him.

“UNCLE! DID YOU KNOW?”

Sengoku was speechless, he never saw Rick like that.

He tried to calm Rick down with a calm voice and attitude

“Know about what?”

“The celestial dragons! What those bastards are doing at Sabaody Archipelago!”

Sengoku didn’t say anything.

“So you knew! How... How can you look at yourself in a mirror? How could you stand here, leading the world’s justice, when you let those scums roam free without repercussions!

“They are the world nobles!”

“They are nothing more than trash that we should clean up! Nobody would miss those guys and they are not irreplaceable!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“And you don’t know what justice is! Did grandpa and big sis know? Don’t answer that of course they do… I can’t believe that I looked up to all of you, that I admired all of you!”

‘Now let’s do some eye play.’

Sengoku felt bad when he heard Rick words, he saw his tears falling down, and the hurt of betrayal in his eyes clenched his heart.

“Rick, that’s not…”

“Save it, I don't want to hear your lies anymore! And I hope you all had your fun laughing behind my back at my dreams because I won't let you do it anymore. I'm done!”.

“What?”

“I don’t want to be part of such a hypocritical organization. Knowing that I dedicated almost half my life for it makes me want to puke.”

Rick took his cap off, it was once Sengoku’s, on it was Vice-admiral Aokiji’s sleeping mask he received for his 7th birthday.

He threw them with force on the ground.

He took his sword Ryusei, it ended on the ground too.

Rick looked Sengoku’s right in the eyes and said.

“I quit.”

Turned around and left.

Or tried.

~~~~~~

Akainu was pissed, this brat interrupted his meeting with Sengoku and completely ignored him.

When Rick was about to leave, he saw the opportunity to pay him back for the humiliation he suffered years earlier.

He attacked him.

~~~~~~

Rick barely dodged the hit. He didn’t even know how he did it since he didn’t even see it coming.

Akainu was sending a second one.

Rick activated his gravity and used every ounce of strength he had to push him back.

The Vice admiral was sent back. He may be a logia user but magma still had a mass.

Before he could get up, Rick brought down the ceiling onto him.

Such an attack was useless against a logia, but it blocked Akainu’s sight. Allowing Rick a long enough moment to flee using the now destroyed wall.

Sengoku couldn’t do anything, simply because when he heard Rick announcing he was quitting, his mind froze.

~~~~~

 A week has passed since then. News spread around the world.

In Alabasta, King Cobra and his retainers were looking at the newspaper.

“Your majesty, that can’t be true.”

“I don’t believe it either.”

“Don’t let my daughter know of this, it will devastate her.”

Right on cue, Vivi entered the throne room crying, holding her own newspaper.

“Daddy! It’s a lie right? They are lying!  Rick would never do that!”

Cobra sighed….

~~~~~

On the Island of women: Amazon Lily.

“Elder Nyon! Something is wrong with sister!”

“She’s all hot and her face is flushed!”

Elder Nyon rushed towards Hancock’s room.

She found the young woman in her bed clutching her chest.

She was delirious.

“Haaa, Rick!”

Elder Nyon knew that name, that was the name of the young marine that saved Hancock and her sisters from the marines before Rayleigh and her rescued them.

The pirate empress was holding a newspaper in her other hand.

The former empress snatched out and looked at it.

Her eyes went wide!

She couldn’t believe what she was reading. If what was written there was true, no wonder Hancock was sick!

“Elder Nyon, what is wrong with sister?” asked Sandersonia.

Elder Nyon sighed.

“ She had contracted the deadliest disease in the world. Many empresses had fallen to it before.”

“Is there no cure?” asked Marigold worried.

“Alas, no. But Hancock is strong and she will overcome it!”

~~~~~

Back in Marineford.

Tsuru and Kaza had grimed looks, they were in Tsuru’s private quarters.

They didn’t believe the reports, there was no way they were true.

They thought that it couldn’t get any worse.

They thought wrong and they needed to act fast.

~~~~~

Garp had almost started a fight with Sengoku from what he had done to Rick!

“How could you Sengoku! Rick is like a nephew to you!”

“I didn’t have any choice, Garp! That’s all that damn Sakazuki’s doing. He contacted the press before I could do anything!”

“I’m gonna kill that asshole!”

“And then what? That would not help Rick in any way.”

“I don’t see you helping him!”

“I did everything I could while the five elders were breathing down my neck! I made his reward 4 times lower than it should be and changed it to ALIVE only!”

He handed Garp a wanted poster. 

On it was Rick's smiling face.

RICK WALD

WORLD’S WORST TRAITOR

FORMER ENSIGN OF THE MARINES

 

ALIVE ONLY

 

Wanted for attempt murder on a Vice Admiral of the marine

Wanted for attempt murder on the Fleet admiral of the marine

Wanted for attempt murder on a celestial dragon

REWARD:

79,000,000 belly

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