One Piece Fic: Yalta
Title: Yalta

Pairings: In-passing mention of Lucci/Kaku, even more tangential mention of Luffy/Zoro.
Rating: PG
SPOILERS for up to manga 435+ (Sorry, was in such a hurry to get off to yoga, forgot to add that)

AN: So, here's the damage: a weird slice-of-the-future fic, CP9 POV - there's a couple of Straw Hats thrown in too - flavors of politics and diplomacy, no sex or fighting (damn), and the title is some kind of historical pun, and a weak one at that. Oh yeah, this fic's gonna do well. I almost didn't post it, but...this is also the fic I worked on when I was tired of writing. The fic I had fun with and that stretched my skills a little. So here it is, and hopefully somebody out there will enjoy it as much as I did ^_^



Timeline: Over three years after the end of the series, and the world has changed...

Disclaimer: I do NOT endorse CP9's view of government, I just write using their POV. Also, I don't own the characters, though I would love to borrow Hattori in his little coat (awww)

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Yalta





"Director?" The train attendant's voice was an inane chirp. "Can I get you anything to drink before we arrive at the station?"

Kaku looked up from his folder and smiled just as blandly. "Cyanide, please. With ice and a twist of lemon."

"I-I'm sorry?"

"How about you, Lucci. Make that two?"

Lucci looked around from where he was sitting near the window, kitty-corner in the opposite row of seats. Whatever he'd been thinking about before the interruption, it had involved blood rather than beverages, and he wasn't putting all that much effort into concealing it. Kaku was so used to his partner's aura he barely noticed, but the young attendant lasted three seconds before bolting with a sob of fright.

"It might help if you approached this with a sense of humor, you know," Kaku told him, once the carriage door had crashed shut behind the fleeing woman.

Lucci went back to staring out at the sea swishing past their carriage window. When frost failed to form on the pane, Kaku returned his attention to the dossiers in preparation for the meeting from hell. It was enough to make him wish he could have a few drinks, despite the early hour. Considering who would be on the other side of the table for this parley, it should be downright illegal to be sober.

The carriage door opened again, letting in a rush of rat-a-tat-tats. The conductor made his way up the sleeper car the government had reserved for their delegation, and puffed out his chest as he stopped next to their row of seats. "Good morning, Director. I thought you'd like to know that we'll be arriving at the Yalta station in twenty minutes."

"That's interesting. It was interesting ten minutes ago, too, when your steward told me we were all of half an hour away." Kaku flipped a page. "So, tell me, can you make this train go any faster?"

A confused silence gave way to a "Er...no, sir..."

"Then I fail to see what I'll do with that information, but thanks for bringing it to my attention."

Kaku continued to study his files until the man got the hint and left.

"Lucci?" He waited until the reflection of dark eyes in the window met his gaze. "Next time I'm interrupted, you're authorized to kill."

Lucci's lips twitched away from his teeth in a brief, silent snarl. "If only you meant that."

"Unfortunately I don't, but I feel better for saying it."

Kaku rifled through the papers, a pointless exercise. He'd memorized the information hours ago, all he'd been doing for the past few minutes was stare at the two pictures stapled to the left hand corner. He locked the folders in the briefcase and got to his feet as smoothly as he could through the stab of pain, with mitigated success.

"Unless the fool really could make the train go faster, we're still a quarter of an hour away," Lucci said without turning away from the window.

"Don't you start...I'm just stretching my legs."

"You should have done that at intervals during the trip. Take your physical limitations into account before going into a hostile situation." Lucci's voice had the warm, vibrant sympathy of a cat talking to an injured canary. There were times Kaku got a bit tired of the way Lucci never cut him any slack. And that was perfect; it kept him from going soft, or letting the whole 'Director' crap go to his head. Besides, assuming Lucci could even feel pity at all, which was highly doubtful, Kaku would loathe that ten times more. He knew it, Lucci knew it, that about wrapped it up.

He took a few steps forward, keeping his gait steady through sheer bloody-mindedness until he could grab the gilded iron railing above the window where Hattori was roosting. The first beam of dawn sunshine sparkled over the sea outside, despicably bright and cheerful considering today's agenda. Kaku shifted from one foot to another against the sway of the carriage, working out the knots by tensing each muscle in turn. Puffing Tom's red-eye to Yalta was the fastest way of getting there from the rebuilt Enies Lobby station, and the ache in his back and legs from bunks and seats in a shaking carriage didn't enter into account.

The hiss of brakes engaging scattered his thoughts, which had been shiftless and bleak anyway. "Sounds like we're arriving. Three minutes late, I make it. I bet it's some kind of elaborate joke they're playing on us."

"How do you do it?"

Kaku glanced down. Lucci's scrutiny was incurious, despite his question. "Hmm? Do what?"

"How can you remember what we were, pit it against what we've become and what we've been told to do today, and still pretend to a sense of humor?"

Kaku's grin was all edges. "How can you not?"





The Yalta official sidestepped the two suitcases a young Marine had unloaded for them. "Good morning, sir. Are you Director Kaku?" he asked Lucci in a punctilious manner.

Lucci normally ignored people who thought his patrician good looks, suit and hat made him better director material than Kaku, but his fuse was dangerously short today - and they hadn't even gotten to the hard part yet, oh dear. He gave the hapless man the same look he'd given the doctor who'd mentioned the word 'wheelchair' to Kaku nearly three years ago, during the first painful months of recovery; the level, non-hostile yet spine-chilling stare of a leopard sizing up prey. Having the pigeon on his shoulder mimic the same expression only made it worse.

"I'm Kaku. This is Rob Lucci, one of my agents, and in charge of my security while I'm here," said Kaku, taking pity on the acutely nervous official.

After a few seconds, the man gulped and managed to tear his eyes away from Lucci and Hattori. "...What?" His gaze skimmed over Kaku's train-rumpled clothes and pinned itself on the cap Kaku always wore because he happened to like it. "You're the Director of CP9?"

So much for pity. "That'd be me. Should I have worn a tie? You will let me into the summit without one, I hope?"

The slug took a second to pick up the tone behind the smooth question and then proceeded to backpedal at speed. "C-c-certainly, sir! I- I apologize, it's just that you- um, you're- ah, you are considerably younger than I thought you'd be. For the director of a Cipher Pol agency, I mean."

"Oh yes, I'm so sorry to be twenty six. In a perfect world, I'd be sixty."

In a perfect world, this flinching moron leading them down the quay would not know about CP9 at all. In a perfect world, Kaku and Lucci would have arrived late last night, assassinated all the pirates at this so-called parley and left before morning. In a perfect world, Kaku would be able to do more than just walk with a limp, he'd be able to fight against the best and shed blood at Lucci's side and jump off buildings again.

Kaku's world had once been perfect, black and white, with the occasional splash of blood-red. Nowadays, annoying shades of grey pervaded everything and life was a whole lot more complicated. Though of course, things could always be a lot worse. He and Lucci could be hunted criminals, or dead. In that version, this imbecile wouldn't know about CP9 because it would be non-existent, a victim of the reform and the new era's bright, new and so-called better ideals.

Kaku still withheld judgment on that 'better ideals' bit, because in his mind, a government which wasn't willing to take extreme measures in order to protect its citizens wasn't doing its job. Then again, maybe it'd work...After seeing a moron like Straw Hat Luffy become the Pirate King, Kaku was ready to believe in wayward miracles. But he'd make sure CP9 was still around in the years to come, in case this miracle of benevolent governance turned out to be a pipe dream, and his higher ups realized that having a few assassins at hand wasn't such a bad idea after all. Kaku suspected others in the hierarchy held the same views; it would explain why the surviving CP9 agents had been kept on the roster and given a blanket pardon for past assassinations, on the excuse they'd 'just been following orders'.

The other reason for the whitewash job was walking alongside Kaku right now, presence toned down to near-inconspicuous as they entered the crowded Arrivals hall, a predator slipping unnoticed through tall grass. Whatever they said about their new ideals, the truth of the matter was that they were all, from the Marines Grand Admirals to the crusts at Mariejoie, more afraid of what Rob Lucci would do if turned into a hunted man, rather than kept inside the fold. It was worth revealing CP9 to the world and treat it like the other eight agencies, just to avoid that.

CP9's new charter, to infiltrate and arrest the criminals and pirates the Marines or other Cipher Pol agencies couldn’t handle, was a difficult job requiring great skill and intelligence, and which almost invariably turned into a bloodbath, so Lucci was kept reasonably happy. 'Director Kaku' had been thrown into the bargain because he knew how CP9 worked down to the ground; was unfailingly loyal to his government, even this reformed, fluffy-kitten version of it; and because he wasn't a raving megalomaniac, which made him a better deal than Spandam, at any rate.

Kaku was glad to still be of use, and able to rebuild CP9 after the disasters that had befallen them, so he'd accepted the post, the strictures the government imposed on their operations and the necessity of dealing with cretins. But today, his forbearance was going to be pushed to the limit. Today, he was going to have to work hard at remembering what others in the government seemed so keen to forget; that he was a killer, not an administrator.

Today, he was going to have to face Monkey D Luffy and Roronoa Zoro again.

But this needn't be utterly unpleasant, he told himself grimly. The summer island of Yalta was a well-known resort, the hotel booked for the summit was luxurious, and the need for this meeting was pressing. Blackbeard was a considerably greater danger to them all than the Straw Hats. Surely that would make restraint worth-

"Hey, Zoro, look who's here! Hi you guys! Remember us? We kicked your asses years ago! Back on that big bridge! Remember?"

...He should have had that drink. Or possibly the cyanide.





The negotiations went pretty much as Kaku had anticipated.

"We want you to stop chasing after Whitebeard," Luffy declared, slapping his side of the table with an open hand. The wood quivered and a pencil fell to the floor. "He's old and tired, and he wants to go with his nurses to a nice island and retire."

Kaku didn't bother to look up from where he'd crossed his arms over his chest. "Edward Newgate is a wanted criminal. The man has one of the highest bounties ever recorded."

"So?"

"So the answer is no, we won't stop chasing him. If he leaves his armada, to retire or anything else for that matter, we'll arrest him."

"Okay, I'll tell him when I see him." Luffy looked down at the single sheet of dog-eared paper which was all he'd brought to the table. "We want the islands in the New World who kicked you guys out recognized as sov-...sover-in...Stay away from them, okay?"

"No."

"We don't even want any Marines in the New World at all. We can take care of trouble on our side of the Red Line, so you should stop sending your guys over."

"No."

"We'll let commerce go on across the Red Line, but in exchange, we want pirates to be able to follow the trade routes across all the Blues without being bothered, as long as they don't attack anybody."

"Hell no."

"Yeah, I didn't think that sounded very fun," Luffy said, as if the new world order they were trying to hammer out was a game of cops and robbers, and both sides had to play. "Okay, next point. We want the World Government to relax."

"...What?"

"Relax its strictures, Luffy. It's written on the paper," Zoro said without opening his eyes. He'd tilted his chair back onto two legs, with his boots on the table and arms behind his head; Kaku had wondered if he'd fallen asleep. He was supposed to be Luffy's right hand and security detail, a counterpart to Lucci - who was standing behind Kaku, hands in his pockets, staring expressionlessly at Luffy as if waiting for the slightest provocation; something that was going to get very stressful on his Director eventually, but Kaku couldn't figure out how to tell him to quit it.

Zoro didn't seem to be taking the job too seriously, but then again, neither did the Pirate King. Even Kaku had given up the pretence after five minutes and was now just trying to get through the day without starting a war. He'd warned everybody in the government right from the very start that he was an assassin, not a diplomat; a CP9 agent (inactive status), and currently the head of the agency who made it their duty to exterminate threats to peace and never, ever negotiate with them, and he was damned if he was going to start now. But for some reason, nobody had pulled him off this assignment. The last memo he'd sent about how insane this was came back to him with a note of 'Sounds like you're the man for the job. Deal with it.' scribbled at the bottom. Kaku strongly suspected it was in the Supreme Admiral's own hand. He'd promptly thrown out the pile of carefully prepared statements the foreign office had tried to impose on him and decided he had full discretion, which boiled down to saying No a lot.

"Yeah, relax, that's what I said. Countries like Alabasta don't want you guys controlling them so much. They're not happy, and they're my friends."

"That demand is a bit vague, but I'd say the answer is no, we won't 'relax'."

Luffy took that with the sunny disposition Kaku remembered from three years back, and didn't debate it any more than the other points; he was moving through the list at a good clip, as if he was in a mild hurry to finish, which made two of them.

"And finally, we want Impel Down closed."

"Whatever for?"

"A lot of pirates are held there. I hear it's nasty."

"It certainly is." The new CP9 headquarters were situated beyond the Gates of Justice and above the notorious prison; Kaku could look down into hell every morning at breakfast, and so he knew what he was talking about. "You want it closed. Fine. What should we do with the prisoners? The murderers, pillagers, rapists- as well as Crocodile, his goons, Arlong and his fishy friends, and all the others. Should we release them amongst the civilian population? Give them a gold watch and a pension? Maybe a ticket to the New World? I'd love to do that."

Luffy stared at him, then swiveled his head towards Zoro. "What's he talking about?"

"The prisoners that the Marines caught after you kicked their ass," his first mate translated.

"The ones who want to kill you," Kaku added helpfully, and managed to keep 'as badly as Lucci and I do' to himself.

"They're in Impel Down, Luffy. He's asking what they should do with them if the prison is closed."

"Who cares?"

"Excuse me, Director, would you like a drink?"

Kaku gave the waiter a long look. The young man's blind, happy-to-serve smile was identical to the train attendant's, it was almost uncanny. "Are you lot trying to turn me into an alcoholic?"

"I-I'm sorry, I thought-"

"Give me another hour and that might be an option. Coffee, please; black. Straw Hat, are we done?"

Luffy scratched his head. "I don't know, are we?"

"You gave me the New World pirate council's demands, at least I presume that's what they were, and I said no."

"Oh yeah. I'm so glad they sent you guys!"

Not exactly what Kaku had expected. "You are?"

"Shanks was the one who went to the first parley last month. He said he met with a bunch of government weasels who kept meaning 'no' while saying 'yes maybe'. At least you just say no! Makes things a lot easier."

Kaku uncrossed his arms to rub the bridge of his nose, trying to pinch out the small headache blossoming there. "Luffy, why am I here?"

Luffy tilted his head to one side and gave him a cheerful, uncomprehending smile.

"Why did you ask for Lucci and me to be at this parley? You're the Pirate King, one of the greatest powers in the New World; you could be negotiating with Supreme Admiral Garp directly."

"Grandpa?! No way! He's too scary."

Those tiny click noises behind Kaku were probably the cracking of Lucci's knuckles as his fists slowly primed. When Kaku glanced over his shoulder, his partner's face was still carved in fine marble, but Hattori was all ruffled and doing a remarkable impression of a sneer, considering it had only a beak to work with.

"Why us?" Kaku asked bluntly.

Luffy scratched the back of his head, nudging his hat forward. "Some guys asked me who I wished to parley with, the head of the Marines or Cipher Pol - and then I remembered Dragon saying it was a crime they'd kept CP9 open and put two killers in charge of it, that the reformed World Government wasn't all that different after all. So I asked who was in charge of CP9 these days, and someone said you, and I told them they should send you two here because I know you and we had one badass fight and you won't say no when you mean yes. Or...the other way around."

"His exact words were, 'They're alive?! Cool! I want to parley with Pigeon-guy and Square-nose! I wonder if they got any stronger since we whipped them.'" Zoro's eyes had opened a crack, resting on Lucci's features, and his grin was a hard challenge. Lucci ignored him, while Kaku nodded to himself. So, the pirate council had elected these two to represent them, hm? That bunch of lunatics obviously didn't care if they started the World War most sane people were assiduously trying to avoid. Maybe they'd formed some kind of underhand alliance with Blackbeard's faction. The two sides were supposed to be fighting each other, but they were all pirates after all. Never trust pirates.

"Say, are we done here?" The dread Pirate King was fidgeting on his chair.

"Hardly. You gave us your demands, now I'll give you my government's necessary conditions. Then we spend a tedious two days pretending we care about each other's list. Then we-"

"Yeah, but we're done for this morning, right?" Luffy had one foot inching along the carpet, leg elongating towards the door. "This is important."

"...Important?"

"It's lunchtime! Or near enough. They have a free buffet here! See ya later!"

Zoro stood up without a word and followed the rubber bullet ricocheting out the door. The so-called arbitrator, who'd been told by both parties early on to 'shut up and let us talk', took the opportunity to hare out of the room as well, never to return by the looks of it.

Kaku continued to stare fixedly at the empty chairs on the opposite side of the conference table. "...Whose bright idea was it to make me a diplomat at this parley?"

The soft rumble of Lucci's voice answered him. "His, it seems. You're not doing too badly. There's no point in being subtle with him." Lucci walked around the table to the opposites seats. He picked up the piece of paper Luffy had forgotten and examined it closely. Then he folded it and offhandedly slipped it into his jacket without bothering with evasiveness. "Let's go somewhere quiet and see if we can work out what the pirate council is trying to pull."

"Sounds good." Kaku got to his feet and nodded at the door. "Let's get lunch sent to our suite and talk it over there. I don't want to be anywhere near carousing pirates. Free buffet or not."





The afternoon was winding down, and Luffy had taken his fourth break to have yet another go at the buffet, which was not only free for delegates, but also open all day. The hotel staff were starting to harbor the harried looks of men under siege. Kaku decided that now was a good time to go for a walk and clear his head.

There were small knots of people talking in the gardens beyond the conference room patio. Some were diplomatic attachés who'd come on the train with Kaku and Lucci, others were New World envoys who'd shown up with Luffy. This was where the more detailed negotiations were taking place, in all likelihood. The four men sitting at the conference table were mainly representatives, figureheads; only there because the Powers that Be enjoyed a good joke, same as the next sadistic bastard.

From beneath the tilt of his cap, Kaku watched the men talk in whispers. They all seemed very intent. Hopefully they'd come up with a solution to the real problem, which was how the old World Government and the New World pirate council were going to finally defeat Blackbeard's faction after two years of staggered conflicts, preferably before that maniac managed to revive the Ancient Weapons to take both sides by the throat. That was the problem Kaku wanted to be tackling, damn it; it was the greater threat to society and justice. The accords he was supposed to be working on with Luffy were important to stop the New World and the Old from falling on each other once the common enemy was defeated...but Kaku was having a hard time focusing on a mid-term future when an immediate threat still loomed. Besides, as far as he was concerned, Whitebeard, Luffy, Shanks, Blackbeard and his marauders...they were all pirates at the end of the day. Kaku didn't like pirates.

He headed towards one of the decorative stone benches in the luxurious gardens, his limp more pronounced than he'd like. The chairs in the conference room were too soft and curved for his back. Would he have time at night to exercise the knots and kinks out...? He didn't want to have to unpack his cane for this parley, not when he was going to be facing these pirates day in and day out. It wasn't a matter of pride; a CP9 agent had none outside of the accomplishment of his mission. But the cane he still used on occasion was one of his old swords in its straight wooden scabbard, and it really wasn't a good idea for him to be armed during these conferences. It might prove too tempting.

And speaking of dangerous weapons...Kaku turned his head a few degrees. "Where'd your master go, hm?"

Hattori rolled a few R's at him. Shortly after Luffy had declared another recess with a war-cry of 'Meaaaaat', the pigeon had landed on Kaku's shoulder, drawing his attention to the suddenly empty spot behind him. If Lucci had simply gone for a break too, he'd have taken his pet...

"He wouldn't be examining the wing of the hotel reserved for the pirate delegation, would he? Juuust to see if there's any security flaws to be exploited?"

Hattori gave Kaku a blank, uncomprehending look, which wasn't hard to do with a brain the size of a pea. It was rather too easy to anthropomorphize Lucci's feathered shadow, and it had picked up some rather eerie habits after all those years with him, but at the end of the day, it was still just a dumb pigeon.

"Never mind. We've all been teammates for far too long, right? We both know what he's up to."

"Koo-roooo."

"You said it."

There was no doubt in Kaku's mind that the Pirate King was stronger than Rob Lucci these days, however bitter the knowledge. Lucci had been training like a man possessed since his defeat three years ago, but he was also thirty-one, going on thirty-two. Luffy was in his prime, and had battled his way to the top of the New World food chain...Ah, but that wouldn't stop the man who had 'the end justifies the means' carved onto his back in big, ugly letters. Lucci wouldn't fight fair; he'd fight to win. And seeing how Luffy ate, it would be ridiculously easy to poison him, for starters.

It'd be embarrassing if Lucci were caught skulking around the pirate wing, but that would never happen. Neither would Lucci actually do anything without an order first. If he wanted to plan an assassination that was almost certainly not going to happen, that was fine, and maybe even therapeutic. In principle he should be here, watching his director's back, but Kaku didn't mind the apparent lapse in vigilance. He'd be more offended if his partner thought it necessary to hover. CP9 was starting to become quite a threat to organized crime, and so a few bosses had ordered a hit on the agency's director last year. Kaku was sure there was some hidden irony there somewhere...The two assassins they'd sent had died with finger-sized holes punched through their throats and a surprised look on their faces, and the lame and seemingly helpless administrator they'd been aiming for hadn't needed to draw his sword, use his Zoan powers or even get up from his chair. Losers. They should have done more research on their target. Kaku had never been that careless...Still, there'd been something intrinsically satisfying about the whole episode. Reminded him of the good old days.

A crunch of steps in gravel. An aura that also reminded Kaku of the old days, but certainly not the good ones. Hattori took flight with an anxious clap of wings, making a beeline towards the hotel's eaves.

Damn, the last person Kaku wanted to talk to.

He didn't look around when the footsteps stopped a couple of feet away; a civilized man would have taken the hint and left him alone. Since this wasn't a civilized man, however, a boot landed next to Kaku on the stone bench and a shadow blocked out the sunlight over Yalta.

"Should I have killed you?"

He certainly doesn't beat about the bush, Kaku thought, twisting on the seat to look up at Roronoa Zoro. The man who'd carved out the title of the world's greatest swordsman was staring down at him steadily.

"I beg your pardon?" Kaku's polite way of saying 'I'm going to pretend I didn't understand your meaning and then we can avoid this conversation before it gets ugly'. Unfortunately, the bloody pirate missed that cue as well, and just repeated himself.

"Should I have killed you back then?" Zoro nodded at Kaku's legs without the slightest hint of discomfort, guilt or malice. "You fought well. It wasn't my intention to leave you like that."

Kaku considered not answering, but he didn't want to be seen as defensive. He went for neutral instead. "Keep your dubious notion of mercy, Roronoa. My purpose in life isn't limited to waving swords around; it's serving justice and my government. My experience and knowledge of what you pirates are capable of has served in good stead." He still had a duty, a goal, and though only Lucci knew how much Kaku missed the free, blood-filled days, he had to admit that what he'd done these past three years seemed rather more constructive at times.

Zoro seemed to take that at face value. "Good."

Good...? Good, was it? Funny, when the doctors had told Kaku that one of the strikes to his chest had hammered past his Tekkai to fracture his ribs and send bone shards into his lumbar vertebra, damaging a few rather important motor nerves, 'good' hadn't been the word that had come to mind.

"Good...Yes..." Kaku smiled, thinking of months of pain and acrimony he'd mostly put behind him now because he'd had no other choice. "It goes without saying that if I could kill you right now, I would."

"Fair enough, but you can't," Roronoa countered, tactful as a cannonball. "I watched you walk out into the garden just now. By the looks of it, you're lucky you can walk at all - lucky, or too damn stubborn to stay down. You'd not last three seconds against me. I guess you can get someone else to kill me instead...but that just wouldn't be the same thing, right?"

"No, it wouldn't be the same thing," Kaku said, looking at the man thoughtfully, "but I wouldn't mind seeing it happen anyway."

"Oh?" Zoro tilted his head. "Then why don't you? No, seriously," he added, as Kaku snorted. "I don't give a shit what the guys in Mariejoie say about the reform; in my books, you're still the head of a bunch of assassins. I'm a pirate in the New World, I'm not covered by your laws anyway. S'gotta be possible. Send that creepy friend of yours, though, because your other agents won't stand a chance against me, whereas he might. You could do that."

Kaku gave him a disparaging look. "Yes, I could, if I was willing to compromise CP9's new charter, risk the agreements we're hammering out, as well as my most valuable agent and eventual retribution by the Straw Hats. No. Don't worry, Roronoa; it irritates me profoundly, but you're quite safe."

Absurdly, the man grinned, not mockingly but as if they'd just shaken hands. "See? You don't want me dead that badly after all."

Kaku stared at him - then he had to laugh.

"I don't see why that was funny," Lucci said later that night, after Kaku tried to explain what he'd been smiling about when he and Roronoa had gone back to the conference room - at which point the two of them had run into Lucci searching for his director, a dangerously expressionless look on his face and a ruffled Hattori sitting on his shoulder.

"I wouldn't say funny as such, but it was the way he said it, like he'd put everything into perspective. He was perfectly serious, too, he really-"

"And that amuses you?" Lucci asked coldly.

"He-...I guess..." Kaku shrugged. "You just had to be there."

Lucci went back to leaning against the balcony railing like a dangerous predator. "It was a good thing I wasn't."

Kaku sighed and glanced at the wet bar, which was looking awfully tempting tonight. Not tempting enough, though. Since his promotion, Kaku had downed enough coffee to drown Water 7, but he steered clear of anything stronger. Spandam used to drink like a fish whenever he thought his minions weren't looking, before being fired for a list of idiocies and crimes longer than he was. As his replacement, Kaku intended to do the best job he could, and for that, he took it as a guideline that he should never do anything Spandam ever did. It'd worked so far. At least, there'd been no out and out catastrophes.

And speaking of catastrophes...he glanced back at Lucci. "What was the drama about, just before dinner?"

When Kaku had felt that aura surge up like a spitting, feral thing, he'd thought for sure someone had been insane enough to attack Lucci and unleash hell. But when he'd stumbled over to the buffet, nobody had been harmed. Lucci's presence had tightened in again almost immediately. He was staring at Luffy who was looking back at the CP9 agent with a 'What? What did I say?' expression on his innocent face. Lucci had murmured "I don't think so," in the tone of voice in which he'd have said, "I really do think I will kill you now." Luffy had opened his mouth and Zoro had dragged his captain away precipitously.

"Nothing," Lucci answered in a short manner that said cold and calculated homicide was just around the corner if this subject wasn't dropped. Kaku had been his teammate for too long to pay attention to that kind of tone, though.

"Roronoa was standing right next to you guys, and he looked almost as offended as you did." That's what made Kaku curious. It took a lot to get Lucci to lose even a fraction of his temper, to start with, and Zoro's reaction was just as intriguing. "What did the Straw Hat say?"

"I don't know how Roronoa can stand to work under that-" Lucci interrupted himself with a sharp shake of his head. Hattori fell from his shoulder and flapped away with a surprised coo to settle on the curtain railing. Kaku had never seen Lucci have that kind of reaction before, and now the curiosity really would kill him, assuming the cat didn't do the job.

"Tell me."

Lucci's gaze scoured the summer night outside the hotel room. "You don't want to know."

Kaku set course towards the side table and the water carafe. "I could make it an order," he mentioned in passing.

Even without turning away from where he was selecting a glass, he could feel the Look drill into his shoulder blades. Kaku ignored it blithely. The reversal of the leader's role between them hadn't been that great an adjustment, all said; most of the time it went unnoticed, the partners were too used to working with a single mind towards the same goal. It still made a great way of getting under Lucci's skin from time to time, and Kaku never got bored of doing that. He wouldn't be a CP9 agent if he weren't into risk-taking behavior, after all.

Lucci capitulated in the haughty, indifferent way of felines everywhere. "Fine. He was saying it was funny to see us again after all this time."

"Yes, that would annoy me too."

"He mentioned his plans for tonight, and at that point it occurred to him that the four of us might run into each other outside of the conference room."

"What, he was trying to set up a duel on the sly? I can't take on someone of that caliber anymore, and that idiot has to realize that the three of you shouldn't fight. That's frowned upon during a parley."

"Do you really think that cretin can do anything on the sly? He meant that we might accidentally bump into each other while visiting Yalta tonight and he thought the result would be hilarious."

"The man has no survival instincts. Is that what got you so riled?" Kaku dropped some ice cubes into the glass.

"The word he used was 'double-date'."

Kaku dropped the glass, ice cubes and all. Fortunately it fell on the carpet and didn't shatter.

"I told you you wouldn't want to know," Lucci said with icy satisfaction coloring his distaste.

"...You were right." He was shaking his head like Lucci had, trying to wring out a series of disturbing mental images. Roronoa and...They'd have to update the files, if that could be verified, but...but...

There was a moment of silence in which Kaku picked up the glass and ice cubes and tried to keep an uncharacteristically jittery feel from crawling up his spine.

"But...how did he know...how would he know that we- he was just speculating, right? Because we share a suite. Right?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know how that creature thinks. He has no idea how badly I want to rip his heart out." Lucci was choosing his words with the care and precision with which he'd pick a weapon. "It's...irritating."

"Don't let him provoke you."

"His existence provokes me."

"There's not much we can do about that."

Lucci's eyes were sharp with killer cunning as he stared in the direction of the pirate delegation's wing. "I can think of several scenarios where we could justifiably-"

"No." The word was entirely uncompromising. "You can put a lid on that line of thought right now. Straw Hat Luffy will walk away from Yalta unharmed, and everybody in his party as well. You know our orders, agent."

And whatever else they'd been, whatever else they'd done, they'd always followed orders. Lucci occasionally tried to get away with obeying only the letter and not the spirit...which might well be why Garp had accepted Kaku's nomination as head of CP9, despite all their differences; because Kaku knew Lucci's propensities damn well and phrased his orders accordingly, expecting them to be obeyed. Lucci had accepted the leash the government had fastened around his neck, but Kaku was the only one who had earned the right to jerk it.

Kaku didn't take the banked surge of cold resentment personally, and even went to lean against the railing by Lucci's side, glass dangling from his fingers, watching the night in silence as if there wasn't any other place he'd rather be than within striking distance of that cold façade and dark murderous aura.

The small slice of moon crawled up over the black shape of palm trees. The tension at Kaku's side faded a little. They both knew the cost of restraint, had paid it multiple times already. The two of them were the last of the old guard; having the other man there, knowing their common past...it helped. The last three years had in no way dimmed Lucci's dedication to justice, duty and murder (Kaku had long ago chosen not to examine the order in which his partner's motivations came in). But Lucci had had to make a choice; undiminished savagery outside the laws they'd sworn to uphold, or accepting the collar their reformed government asked them to wear. That choice, the lesson in humility Luffy had handed him and Kaku's influence these past few years had changed Lucci a little. The outline of a human being was emerging from inside the killing machine that was Rob Lucci, though Kaku was the only one who was close enough to notice, and that was fine by him.

Lucci's expression was unchanged, but some of the ugly tension had drained from the set of his shoulders and his eyes weren't quite as deathly cold any more as he turned his head towards Kaku. Up on the curtain rail, Hattori chirruped and started to run a beak through its feathers, as usual a fairly reliable indicator of its master's mood. Lucci leaned towards his old comrade a fraction. "You said you-"

"Hey, look who's there. Hi!"

Kaku managed not to crush the glass in his fist, but it was a close thing as he saw the embers of warmth vanish and the killing machine rev back up to full gear and then some. Lucci turned incandescent eyes out towards the darkness of the garden and the two figures emerging into the pool of light beneath a decorative lantern.

"We were looking for the bar, but we got lost. Do you know where it is? Want to come with? I'll arm-wrestle you for the tab, pigeon-guy, but I warn you, I'm stronger than I was last time we fought-why are you poking me- oh, oh right, right, do you two wanna be alone?"

For all his talk of 'don't let him provoke you', it was Kaku who snapped. His legs might be weak but there was nothing wrong with his arm or his aim. There was a boing and a crash as the glass did an impressive rebound off of Luffy's head and shattered against a palm tree.

"The bar's in your wing. Get out of here and go back the way you came," Lucci said, drawing his simmering director away from the balcony before the latter could rip up the metal railing and hurl that too.

"C'mon, Luffy, let's go get that drink." Zoro looped an arm around his captain's shoulders and dragged him off, happy-go-lucky expression, straw hat and all.

"Good throw," Lucci said. "Did you run out of actual weapons?"

"...I have a throwing knife strapped to my forearm. Please remind me to remove that before we go to our meeting tomorrow."

Lucci fastened the balcony door shut. "Is that an order?"

"Lucci-"

"Don't give me the peacemaker line now. You're the one who nailed him with a glass." Lucci seemed to be currently enjoying himself, in that cool sadistic way of his. Contrary bastard.

"A glass won't hurt him. Unfortunately. But maybe it’ll help him understand that facing a common enemy doesn't make us more than very reluctant allies. Damn, this is going to be the longest three days of our lives."

"One order, Director. One single order, that's all it'd take."

"An order you know bloody well I'm not allowed to give. Let's be serious. We've been through worse. Five years undercover; working for that imbecile, Spandam; those bloody drumhead inquiries after Enies Lobby three years ago; we put up with all that. We can put up with Straw Hat Luffy for three days."

Fingers fastened on his shoulder and thumbed a pressure point in a rough massage. "You should see your stance when you said that. You'd have looked more comfortable stretched out on a rack."

"Our comfort - even our sanity - are expendable," Kaku declared, fist clenched in resolve. "We have always been ready to sacrifice everything for peace and justice. And look on the bright side."

"What bright side."

"In three days time the parley's over and maybe we can murder him then."

The hand slid across his shoulder and pulled him further into the room. "That's why we work well together. You're the glass-half-full one."

"I try, I try."

It turned out to be a very long and occasionally quite rocky parley. Oddly enough, it was considerably more productive than Shanks' meeting with the 'yes maybe' weasels, which was why Garp organized another one for the following month, same line-up. Kaku's vitriolic memo came back with the same scribbled handwriting giving him these words of wisdom.

'You're still the man for the job, so suck it up and Deal With It.'



END

Comments - or just some indication that readers got to the end of this despite not much happening - will be a wonderful joy and surprise.

I wrote a smaller sequel to this, though chronologically it's actually a prequel. 'You Are Cordially Invited...'