It was well past midnight, and the bar was quiet in that comfortable way only truly old buildings could manage—like it had exhaled after a long day and finally let its bones creak.
The only sound was the occasional rustle of paper and the ticking of a cheap wall clock that no one had bothered to reset since the last blackout.
Shakky sat behind the bar in a loose black tank top and pajama pants, a pair of thin reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. She had a half-empty glass of wine beside her and a small stack of old, yellowed papers spread across the bar—ledgers, maps, old bounty posters, notes written in shorthand only she could decipher.
She flipped through them slowly, methodically, like a historian studying her own sins.
The door creaked open without so much as a knock.
A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped inside like he owned the place. His scruffy stubble had given way to a short beard, and his black coat hung open, revealing a shirt with no buttons fastened and a sword slung carelessly on his hip.
The "Closed" sign dangled crookedly behind him as the salty sea breeze slipped into the room before the door swung shut again.
Without looking up, Shakky muttered, "Dinner's in the fridge. Help yourself."
"Don't mind if I do," came the easy, gravelly reply, followed by the clink of a plate being pulled from inside the fridge.
He set it down on the bar and began eating straight from it, barely bothering to reheat it. He was built like a warship but chewed like a man who'd once lost a tooth in a pie and never quite trusted food again.
After a few quiet bites, Shakky asked, still not looking up, "Any luck today?"
The man grunted, then gave a short chuckle. "Nope." He took a bigger bite and mumbled through it, "I might have to sell myself into slavery again to pay my gambling debts."
That got a reaction. A grin tugged at the corners of Shakky's mouth despite herself.
"For a man supposedly in hiding, you sure like to stick your neck out."
He barked a laugh. "What can I say? With old age comes boredom. Either I get captured or I actually start making money—either way, something's gotta give."
He paused, studying her over his fork. "Haven't seen you this focused in a long time. What's got you sifting through the archives?"
Shakky finally looked up, her expression somewhere between amused and thoughtful.
"Turns out I can get bored too, you know. Retirement's not all wine and crossword puzzles."
"Could've fooled me," he said, reaching for a bottle behind the bar like it belonged to him. (It did.)
She sipped her wine, then leaned back in her stool, tapping one long nail against the stack of papers.
"Met an interesting young man today."
That made him blink. Not much did, these days.
"Oh?" He tilted his head, curiosity sparking behind his eyes. "Someone I might like to meet?"
Shakky swirled her wine in slow circles, letting the silence stretch just long enough to tease him. Her smirk deepened, the corner of her mouth lifting like she was enjoying some private joke.
"You'll definitely like meeting him," she said at last, still watching the wine spin. "As for him meeting you… well, that could go either way."
The man raised a brow, intrigued.
"He might hate it… or he might like it a bit too much."
That earned a short laugh through his nose. "You're being cryptic again. That's my thing."
Shakky chuckled and tipped her glass toward him. "And you're still stealing my wine. That's my thing."
They locked eyes for a moment—old partners, old rogues, too tired for games but still playing them anyway. Then they both burst into laughter, low and unhurried, like the kind shared between two people who've already buried too many friends to care about the stakes anymore.
When it faded, Shakky leaned an elbow on the counter and gave a soft shake of her head. "He's a young Marine captain. Just walked in and told me he wants to take over the local gangs."
The man snorted, already liking the sound of this idiot.
"Said he needed my help."
That made him look up again. Shakky didn't help people. She tolerated them.
"But," she continued, her voice growing quieter, "I'm not sure if he's telling the truth… or if he's here for you."
The man froze, mid-sip of wine he'd poured without asking. He set the glass down slowly.
"What makes you think that?"
Shakky's gaze dropped to one of the papers spread across the counter. An old wanted poster. The edges were frayed, the ink smudged—but the name was still legible: Admiral Blight.
"He's the one who took out your old acquaintance."
The old man blinked. "Blight? That sack of rot was still alive?"
"Not anymore," Shakky said, swirling her wine again. "Though to be fair, your old friend was barely a shadow of himself. More walking corpse than corpse by the end."
The man gave a long exhale and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. "Damn... that man gave us a lot of trouble back in the day. I owe him a beating, and a drink..."
"Well," Shakky said with a shrug, "guess the kid saved you the trouble."
He grunted, then grinned. "So this young captain… he takes out Blight, strolls into your bar, and asks you to help him with the underworld, and you think he wants a piece of me next?"
She nodded slowly, her gaze sharpening. "He might be aiming to take down the Dark King next. Another feather in his cap. A nice little step on his way up the ladder."
That got a bark of laughter out of the old man. This time it wasn't tired or dry—it was a full, honest laugh that filled the bar and rattled the bottles behind him.
"Well," the man, Dark King Rayleigh, said, raising his glass again, "now I'm really interested in meeting this kid."
Shakky smirked into her wine and raised her glass back at him.
"Oh, you'll meet him," she said. "Sooner or later."
And they both drank, the room settling back into its soft quiet—just a bar, an old couple, and the slow creaking of the past inching closer.
...
The ceiling fan spun with the lazy rhythm of a man who'd given up on life but still had bills to pay. The air was warm, paper-dry, and smelled vaguely of ink, sweat, and bureaucratic decay.
Gale sat behind the desk like a corpse propped up for questioning. His eyes—empty, dull, betrayed—stared at the mountainous stack of paperwork in front of him as though hoping, perhaps praying, that it would burst into flames through sheer willpower.
No such luck.
The door creaked open. Gale didn't even flinch.
"More for you, sir," came the far too chipper voice of the ensign, who shuffled in carrying another armload of folders.
The stack in his arms wobbled dangerously, like it was considering whether falling and crushing a superior officer could be considered a treasonous act or just a mercy killing.
Gale blinked slowly. "Is that a second mountain, or did the first one evolve?"
The ensign, completely immune to sarcasm or perhaps just desensitized by proximity to madness, carefully set the new stack beside the first.
"This is everything from the last three weeks. Port activity logs, patrol rotations, pirate sightings, staff complaints, vending machine theft reports, and one very persistent guy who keeps filing formal requests to declare sea king hunting an official sport."
"Of course."
"Would you like coffee, sir?"
"No," Gale muttered. "Bring me a gun so I can shoot myself."
The ensign blinked. "Uh… I'll bring coffee."
He left.
Gale leaned back in the creaking chair that had almost certainly claimed the spines of several men before him. His soul had left his body three folders ago. It was now floating somewhere over Grove 33, watching tourists get scammed by fake ride coupons and wondering what choices in life led to this.
Not even in his wildest nightmares did Gale imagine he'd end up sitting behind a desk with a mountain of paperwork ominously towering over him like the final boss of a Souls game when he walked into the branch.
Hell, he just wanted to report for formality's sake and snake out when no one was looking.
But the moment the local officers realized a real, shiny Marine Captain had walked into their base, they pounced like starving wolves. Dragged him into the office, slapped a pen in his hand, and locked the door like they were sealing a curse.
Turned out, the base's former commander had been called back to Marine HQ two months ago to help chase down revolutionaries in the South Blue. Since then, the paperwork had just… marinated. Festering. Multiplying.
And now Gale had to sift through all of it. Every request. Every incident report. Every single requisition form for mop handles and replacement seastone cuffs. All of it had to be read, accepted, signed, or shredded under his name.
And when he tried to walk away?
They called HQ.
THEY CALLED HQ.
And HQ, the absolute traitors, put him through to a Vice Admiral—one who was clearly having a bad day—and who proceeded to quote Sengoku the Buddha himself:
"You either do your paperwork or we throw you into the New World on a Yonko subjugation mission. You want to fight Big Mom's tax man over fruit quotas? Be my guest."
Gale had never signed anything so fast in his life.
Now, here he sat. Manacled by folders. Staring into a void made of reports. Somewhere in there was probably a request to fix a leaking urinal. Somewhere else, the ghost of the base's dignity was weeping into a misfiled dinner budget.
On the bright side—if one could call it that—he would have an incredibly thorough understanding of everything happening on Sabaody.
Pirate movements. Underworld whispers. Navy personnel corruption. Smuggling ops. Civilian disturbances. Shady broker activity. All of it.
In exchange for his sanity.
A fair trade, some might say.
But not Gale.
Gale just reached for the top folder with the grace of a man climbing back into his own coffin.
"Request to install karaoke machine in barracks," he read aloud.
He looked at the camera in the corner of the office like he was on a sitcom.
"I hate it here."
...
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