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It was an interesting thing, being the world’s greatest swordsman in a world such as his. Many didn’t realize how narrow of a title it could be.
He had, on his climb to the top, struck down a user of the lightning devil fruit, who was also a swordsman. They had trained in the art of the sword, and applied it in battle, following through on the martial art even as their fulgurant blade electrified any opponent who couldn’t handle such hurdles of the world. It had been an exhilarating duel with a powered swordsman.
Mihawk had heard about the current user in passing rumors. Like most with such powers, it sounded as though they would not be a swordsman, even if they made or picked up a sword with their devil fruit.
To use the blade of a sword as your primary weapon, and follow the art of it, it was only those few people that Mihawk was measured against in his title.
And it was a hard fought title, his proudest achievement, what he deserved for his strength.
It did not guarantee him a win in a fight, however, especially not in a world where master swordsmen sent ships to the bottom of the sea, split in half, right alongside brats accidentally sneezing with a new power.
It did not guarantee him to be the strongest in a fight when men like Edward Newgate made the ground tremble with size, magic, and combat prowess, with not a bit of swordsmanship in sight.
It could keep him occupied, sometimes, and at least kept him from getting rusty. Mihawk did not need to worry about his standards lowering when he could go pick fights from non-swordsman combatants that split islands as easily as he. But he didn’t particularly enjoy it. Such diversions missed the beauty of swordsmanship, couldn’t make his blood sing in the way the truly deadly dance of a proper duel could.
As such, he had very little pride for picking every and any decent fight he could, even when bored. He knew the value of a tactical retreat, and exercised it judiciously when he couldn’t be bothered with a fight that was more obstacle than challenge.
Case in point, the civil war happening on two islands in a rare cluster of three in the Grand Line.
He was in a one-man boat, surrounded by whirlpools. The only path available without the natural formations was where the rival Capague and Montulet navies were fighting over who got to control the cross-island kingdom.
Cutting through either was going to be a chore he did not want to muster up the energy for.
His observation haki pinged, and he raised a hand towards his back, just in case.
The water, as far as he could see and sense, vibrated.
Mihawk clenched his jaw as he felt the boom milliseconds before the sound and backlash actually hit him.
He tapped into his observation haki fully as he shut his eyes. Objects were flying everywhere, the navies each at least a third destroyed, the voices of people going dead in waves.
The Anorev kingdom shouldn’t have had this sort of firepower, let alone one of the factions splitting the kingdom in two. Given the symmetry of the destruction, it seemed both sides had bought the same nonsense weapon from afar and fired it at one another. Some arms dealer must have been very happy.
Mihawk opened his eyes, watching boredly as the debris continued to fly around him, the only things making it as far as him lightweight enough to not worry about, but enough being tossed into the water around him to disturb his boat.
It was also enough to make the already whirl-pooled disturbed waters become annoyingly dangerous for his small vessel.
There was nothing interesting in the idea of chopping the small navies into pieces. They were all paltry fools who tried to brute force their way through problems. Even a charging avalanche would present more interest to Mihawk’s blade.
But he might have to.
The thought made his lip twitch for a moment, trying to pull into a frown.
And then he saw the ships with each side’s new weapon actually move, giving him a good glimpse of the weapons now that the ships between him and the weapons were more sunk than not.
They were, of all wretched things, two Excelsis Supercannons pointed at each other.
Mihawk let himself openly frown this time.
After the debacle with one of these at Swelti island, and then the whispers of the manufacturer Monk Stand being blacklisted after that, it was only a matter of unfortunately short time before Shanks showed up.
Mihawk observed the whirlpools again. They weren’t well studied enough, and too deep for his observation haki, for him to know how to cut through them. His boat wouldn’t make it through them either.
He looked back at the fighting navies, clearly preparing more shots from the Supercannons. If he waited, Shanks would surely show up and take care of the problem. But then he’d have to deal with Shanks.
He could never hide from Shanks, no matter what he tried.
Mihawk had not prepared for a run-in with the man and his crew.
He glanced at the third island in the cluster, the spire-shaped landmass that made up the Conlaus kingdom.
He didn’t meet entry requirements. He was not willing to meet entry requirements.
He’d have to fight his way through the island or the civil war. And one was easier, even if annoying.
Mihawk leveled the dithering, limping navies with a glare and a sigh, then reached back to unfurl his sail a little.
Of course, by the time he made his way close enough to strike them all down and make his way through before any surviving idiots would be able to try to interfere with his leaving, the two cannons were ready to fire.
The Montulets fired first, hitting their opponent’s ship with the supercannon. But not directly, oh no. No, the incompetent fools hit the bow of the ship, leaving it to tilt and then fire down into the water beneath the Capague navy, which Mihawk was closer to.
Which of course set off a string of explosives not yet ruined from the water amongst all the shipwrecks they had created earlier.
Mihawk understood that this was what was happening, but that did not mean he had the time to react to it in any meaningful way.
Both navies had lost or were about to lose every ship, he was too far away from land to get to without footholds, and the water around him was more fire and boiling water than Grand Line normally deadly but swimmable water.
Mihawk did the logical thing, running up his small mast and using it as a springboard to launch himself as high into the air possible. He watched the last bit of his ship catch on fire as he flipped up through the air, clicking his tongue in annoyance.
He’d get through most of the explosions through avoidance, take some damage from those still occurring, and then get himself to land and make someone give him a new ship to get back to Water 7 and have a new boat commissioned.
Gravity took hold, beginning his descent. The explosions beneath him were ongoing but getting smaller even as he drew nearer.
His observation haki warned him of danger.
Mihawk turned his head to the side.
The Red Force had appeared.
Mihawk barely had time to register that and the fact that there was still more danger his senses were warning him about before a mine from a previous civil war was set off, hitting him with force and blowing him off course, right into scraps of wreckage, getting a headwound and more for his troubles.
Mihawk slid into the water amongst the wreckage, losing consciousness. It was uncomfortably warm and red.
The vague comfort he woke up to could mean only one thing – painkillers.
Mihawk forced his breathing to be more active, forcing his body to wake up. He opened his eyes to a clean room, clearly medical.
There was a lack of tell-tale swaying. He was on land somewhere.
He was also on good painkillers, if he could tell that for certain already.
He tensed his muscles to see what was injured. He remembered pain to his head, so at least a head injury.
Most of his body was sore, and at least some of each area was wounded in some way, either naturally inflamed or on topical painkillers so he couldn’t feel or move a few muscles well. His major injuries seemed to be something on his left ribs, worryingly, and two large spots on his right leg.
And then there was whatever might be wrong or go wrong with his head injury.
His arms, at least, seemed mainly sore. He could feel nearly every part of his wrists and arms. His hands were feeling like mittens, but that always happened on major doses of painkillers, so he wouldn’t be able to know how they were until later.
That just left the questions of where was he, and under whose auspices?
There were windows on the left side of the ward, letting in a bit of light through either a cloudy sky or fog. Mihawk couldn’t make out more at his current position.
The room itself was soft white with a few soft neutrals mixed in. Clean, looking safe for proper medical care, but not overly fancy. There was nothing in the room that could give him any hints about where he was. Even the other five beds were empty.
Mihawk heard a creak that sounded oddly like a bell. He instantly flicked his head to the side, looking towards the door, and brought up his observation haki.
He was immediately greeted with the beginnings of a headache from his observation, so he turned it off immediately. There had been the impression of someone strong right outside the door, and no one else close by. If it came to a fight, they probably wouldn’t be heard without some very loud yelling.
The door opened.
Shanks stepped inside the room.
He smiled, wide and bright, “Hawk-eye!”
Mihawk quickly ran through the facts again. He wasn’t on a ship, so this wasn’t Shanks’s infirmary. He was injured, so he shouldn’t move for a bit unless he needed to. He was on an unknown island, but this infirmary smelled like antiseptic and chamomile, not alcohol, so it was unlikely to be on one of Shanks’s islands. He didn’t have a boat anymore.
So he’d have to tolerate whatever nonsense Shanks was up to now, at least for a bit.
Mihawk raised an eyebrow.
“How are you feeling, hm?” Shanks asked, eyes running up and down as he approached.
“Like I am no longer under any sort of medical emergency.”
Shanks laughed. “Good, good, I’m glad.” He sat down on a stool and dragged it closer to Mihawk’s bed, keeping a healthy distance still, just at the edge of what Mihawk would tolerate.
The move showed an unfortunate amount of knowledge about him.
“The docs here are pretty good, but kind of used to kids or people with big flustering families for most of their patients. Want the lowdown?”
A non-violent island in the Grand Line? That was unusual. And usually meant any such island was very isolated. Still, as much as he wasn’t in the mood for Shanks’s sunny, pushy disposition, he did want a blunt summary.
He nodded his head in assent. Shanks’s smile grew even wider, somehow.
“Well, your head wound is still a little unknown, given you just woke up. But you’ve only been asleep eighteen hours so it wasn’t a coma and there wasn’t any brain inflammation or bleeding or stuff. A number of broken ribs where a few tons of metal hit you at high speed. Organs took some damage but nothing got punctured, so if you wait to heal up it will stay that way. You had an iron rod through your right leg twice. It only went through muscle though,” Shanks explained, ticking off the major injuries with his fingers, “other than that, a little water in the lungs, a lot of scrapes and bruises, and being in the water with open wounds means a month and a half of antibiotics.”
About what he expected. If there was nothing wrong with his head and he could get passage on another’s boat, he’d be able to leave in a week and a half.
“And the doctors themselves?” Mihawk asked as Shanks settled further onto the chair.
The man was instantly pouting at his play.
“Fine, fine, I’ll go get them, it’s almost like you don’t want your oldest friend around while you’re vulnerable,” Shanks grumbled as he got up and walked to the door, flashing Mihawk a sharp smile, amused glint in his eye.
Mihawk watched Shanks leave the room and the door close behind him before releasing the tension in his muscles, sinking down into the bed.
The doctors were indeed treating him with kid gloves in a manner that made it clear they were used to people – or their families – being upset at the slightest pain or medical problem. The platitudes and reassurances were pointless, irritating wastes of both his and the doctors’ time.
They were at least competent, however, and Mihawk was pleased that there was no concussion or other observable brain injury after a day of testing.
It took until the doctors had left that evening though, for him to realize he hadn’t asked which island they were on. He wasn’t willing to call a person back to ask, though. He could have done with far less time with people that day.
There had been enough clues, however, to confirm he was definitely on an isolated Grand Line island. It was likely a primarily agricultural island, and the doctors had at least confirmed it was nearly always foggy out. Which explained his very moss-derived meals so far. If this island was mainly notable for its moss-cuisine, however, then it was probably one he had never heard of.
At least it wasn’t hostile to outsiders.
Or at least not to Shanks. The doctors had mentioned the man several times and implied Shanks was his medical contact and likely paying for his treatment. They’d also implied several times that they believed he and Shanks were companions of some sort. Mihawk rolled his eyes at the memory. It wasn’t the first time Shank’s overly familiar manner with him and generally friendly affect led people to that assumption. It wasn’t worth denouncing, especially in a still unknown situation like this.
Mihawk was already injured, he didn’t want to put effort into pointless attempts at social control, let fools believe what they would.
It was the next day at lunch that he got some answers. The nurse delivering his food had her hair wrapped in a bandana. The outside edge had stylized wildflowers repeating. It was the exact same style as the crest of the Conlaus kingdom.
The kingdom which was on and in a large spire, most of it covered in a mix of fog and cloud. The kingdom that was close to where he had gotten blown up and Shanks pulled him out of the water from. The kingdom so isolated from conflict they weren’t affected by a civil war on their doorstep. The kingdom which he didn’t meet the entry requirements for.
This was-
The floor creaked, with that odd bell tone underneath.
The man was doing it on purpose, wasn’t he? Making sure Mihawk had forewarning. While it was still a bad idea for him to use observation haki outside of emergencies, the action was annoyingly considerate in a way he’d never asked for.
Shanks opened the door and entered the room, a smile on his face.
“Hey, Hawk-eye. How are you doing?”
Mihawk waited for Shanks to drag a stool over and sit down before answering.
“Fine.”
Shanks laughed like he had made a joke instead of trying to dismiss the man.
“Good, good, I’m glad to hear that.”
This was the annoying thing about Shanks.
“We’re in Conlaus,” Mihawk pointed out.
“Ah… yeah. It still has functioning, not overwhelmed hospitals, and I didn’t think you’d do well enough in the Red Force’s infirmary-” small mercies, being stuck in the belly of that drunken beast would have been far worse “-so I dragged you over here. I thought it was better than drowning, after all.”
“Conlaus has such interesting entry requirements,” Mihawk intoned, keeping a watchful eye on all of Shanks, but especially his face and hand. That was where the few tells Mihawk knew about could be read.
Although he still wasn’t sure how intentional those tells were.
“Yes, thankfully a number of the crew meet them, so we’re able to restock and stick around for a bit,” Shanks responded, throwing a quick glance to the side.
Mihawk narrowed his eyes.
This was an isolated kingdom, but on a damp, tall island.
“Do you know if they have any snails available here? I’d like to make a call,” he asked.
“Don’t know, I haven’t gotten around to asking. Sorry,” Shanks answered with a smile.
So that was Shanks’s ploy. And it was an unfortunately realistic one. He wouldn’t want to ask Shanks out loud how they both ended up being allowed on this island if there was a chance of being listened in on.
“Of course,” Shanks continued, “there’s always the ones down on the Red Force.”
No thank you. He very much did not want to use those. His business would be known to the entire Red Hair Pirate crew before he finished a call.
“It’s not urgent. Don’t bother,” Mihawk ordered, for how little that could count with Shanks.
“If you say so,” Shanks agreed amicably, before his face grew into a childish grin “by the way, did you hear about what happened to Limejuice at the last island?”
Mihawk inwardly flinched and mentally steeled himself.
“No, I did not,” he answered.
Shanks laughed and then began to regale him with the tale, apparently determined to keep Mihawk company for the next few hours. Mihawk quickly decided to ignore him and figure out how Shanks might have gotten them into a kingdom that required people to be married or with at least three children to set foot in it.
“He’s so sweet, you’re a very lucky man,” his doctor ‘complimented’ him with a giggle as Shanks left the room.
Mihawk glared at her until she turned away from the door back to him.
“Coming to visit you for each day this week for so long, it’s so nice to see. My spouse and I wish we had the time. You’ve picked a smart husband, one who takes such opportunities,” she praised as she rolled her small cart over to prep for his checkup.
Romance-brained fools were going to be the death of him. Probably literally, with how close he was getting to yelling that he wasn’t married to Shanks. Preferably though, he’d kill such fools instead, especially a certain red-haired one.
“He’s certainly… dedicated,” Mihawk allowed as the doctor started checking him over, poking and prodding.
Mihawk was very glad, once again, that he had no serious injuries on his back or even side, so the doctor stayed within easy sight.
It had been a week, though, the woman was clearly an actual doctor. Mihawk was willing to give her half a gram of trust and stop watching just her, lightening a bit of his attention so he could take a look at the work on his body itself.
The bandages on his leg were being rewrapped, but Mihawk was able to see just enough to observe the wounds were healing cleanly. He would have scars, but they would fade within a few years to near-unnoticeable.
It took a while for his stomach and chest to be unwrapped. The doctor didn’t even bother doing it all at once, undoing a few layers and checking, before moving up further and further.
The bandages on his chest were more extensive than he realized, especially given that the wound on his left ribs was mainly at the level of his stomach, only a little going all the way up to his chest.
The doctor unwrapped all of it.
Mihawk found his gaze fixated on a mark at the left side of his chest. There was a small, black, simple but undeniable overlapping set of circles marked on his skin. Which had never been there before.
He couldn’t even bother keeping track of the doctor as he stared at the pair of circles. If he paid her any attention, he was liable to try to kill her.
She wasn’t the culprit, Mihawk’s gut and his logic told him that. She was almost certainly not the culprit. And he wanted to kill the person responsible for the ink on his skin.
Mihawk spent the evening pushing his observation haki. It had been perfectly usable for the past two days, at least for normal use like finding people and identifying danger.
Searching for snails was another matter. He was almost certain there were none nearby when he woke up in the morning, adrenaline still pumping through his veins at the memory of what was under his bandages now.
He was still angry enough to not care about the possibility of dials when the door creaked and opened to reveal Shanks partway through the morning.
“Shanks,” he growled out.
The man looked at him for a fraction of a second, clearly assessing, before shifting into the familiar wide and bright smile seamlessly.
“Hawk-eye, morning!” Shanks chirped, closing the door beside him.
Shanks walked closer.
He really never understood how people fell for the sweet, polite, overly friendly facade.
Mihawk was a swordsman, a narrow type of combatant that meant his primary weapon was the sword, and that he chose that as the path for his life.
Shanks’s primary weapon, for all his strength in the physical realm, was his tongue and wit.
The mask was always a manipulation, even when genuine. And then there was Mihawk who saw through it so Shanks put it on specifically to annoy him and how did no one else see it?
Shanks stopped on the edge of where Mihawk tolerated other people, just toeing the line.
“The fog smells like lavender today, it’s nice,” Shanks commented pleasantly, the amused glint in his eye as usual.
“What is on my chest, and how did it get there?” Mihawk demanded.
Shanks laughed. “Your bandages? That the doctors put on?” he asked sunnily, taunting.
“Even with your insanity, I doubt you could or would convince someone to tattoo me while unconscious, except for whatever passes for a good reason in your mind,” Mihawk hissed.
Shanks kept the smile on his face and shifted a foot forward, crossing further into Mihawk’s space without actually moving. To Mihawk, it was enough to make it seem like Shanks was looming over him, Conquerer’s Will suddenly pressing down on him with the same strength Shanks had eased him into in each visit days previous.
“Did you know they do wedding ceremonies here?” Shanks asked, still smiling, still watching him.
“What?”
“They’ll do a wedding ceremony right on the edge of the dock, so you can take your first step married onto the island, if you arrive with your intended instead of your spouse.”
Shanks was, through and through, a cruelly selfish man.
“And the tattoo?”
“It’s traditional here, so if you have a Conlaus ceremony, they’ll give you their whole bells and whistles. It’s a nice, simple design, isn’t it?” Shanks prattled on, as if this was a light, normal thing, while undoing the first few buttons of his shirt.
Shanks pushed aside the fabric to reveal a matching tattoo on his chest.
“It sounds like the air whistling through a bird’s wings when I get near you, so I assume I sound like bells to you,” Shanks continued, lightly tracing his own tattoo with a soft look.
What?
Shanks looked up, like he could hear Mihawk’s thoughts.
Shanks smiled, indulgent, gaze drinking in Mihawk intently.
“It works as a tracker too, so married couples can always find their way back to each other.”
Fuck this.
Unfortunately, Shanks was on him before he could get halfway out the bed, let alone grab something to use as an improvised sword.
They wrestled for a moment, but the outcome was obvious. Shanks was healthy and used to all sorts of combat. Mihawk was injured, stiff, already on a bed, and a swordsman.
World’s Greatest Swordsman was such a narrow title. Especially in a world of emperors.
“Would you have rather drowned?” Shanks asked him, tightening his grip on Mihawk’s shoulder to further push their chests together, trapping Mihawk’s arms.
Unfortunately, he could not honestly say that he would have preferred drowning. And Shanks knew his tells too well at this point, despite his best efforts.
“It was not your only option,” Mihawk answered.
“But it was the best option,” Shanks replied easily, as if his judgement on that was a universal truth.
“You’re insane,” Mihawk hissed through his teeth. He made himself keep looking at Shanks, running through his memories of the room to try to figure a way out without giving any planning away.
Except… was there any point?
The amused glint came back to Shanks’s eyes.
“I’m Red-Haired Shanks.”
And he was. He was Red-Haired Shanks, the emperor of the sea. Sanity or insanity was irrelevant when you had that much power. They could take what they wanted and much of the world would have to shift with them. No matter what or how much was desired.
And yet still no one else could see the way Shanks exercised his power, outside of a few his own crew, even though it was the most pirate-like of all the emperors, in Mihawk’s opinion.
Shanks wasn’t a constant glutton – for food or otherwise. He picked up treasures that caught his eye and hoarded them, picking what he considered quality pieces with no consistency and guarding them fiercely.
Shanks would give up an arm for a little protégé he’d claimed, stalk up and down the Grand Line to destroy a class of weapon after it was used against an island he liked, and tie the World’s Greatest Swordsman to him while unconscious, just for his whim of liking something. And people had the gall to call him a pirate with no motivation beyond the next bottle.
The silence stretched on and Mihawk watched the amused glint morph into satisfaction across Shanks’s face, like a lion who had finished a good meal and lazily watched an intruder it could choose to tear limb from limb or spare.
Shanks had no intention of sparing him, Mihawk knew.
“You’ll be fine, it’s better this way, I promise,” Shanks reassured him.
The words felt like manacles. There were so many promises in that small sentence, and Mihawk chose to take almost all of them as threats. Shanks knew that, and still intended to do all he implied, deciding he was right about what was best.
An emperor through and through.
“I’m glad your eyes weren’t injured as well. They’re delicate things and I do love them,” Shanks said, satisfied look turning a bit nostalgic, “you’re always so beautifully clear-eyed.”
Mihawk sometimes wondered what would have happened to him, to them, if he hadn’t scoffed at Shanks’s masks the first time they went drinking after a duel. He was almost certain that was where Shanks’s like and amusement had started to turn, shuffling him into an obsession to be hoarded.
Mihawk closed his eyes.
“Get off,” he ordered, knowing there was no real compulsion behind it that Shanks had to follow.
An amused puff of air ran down his face. “All right,” Shanks acquiesced, rising a moment later.
Mmihawk opened his eyes and glared at Shanks as he rolled his wrists. Shanks stood there, respectful and amused and still so, so satisfied. The image made the situation settle in to Mihawk’s bones, his new reality clicking into place.
He wouldn’t be able to run from Shanks again, never truly retreat. It would all be at the emperor’s sentiments of the moment.
The fact that Shanks valued freedom and would still largely leave him alone just made the feeling of being collared worse.
Shanks stepped forward, and Mihawk accidentally glanced at the medical cart at the bed across from him. Shanks’s lip quirked up for a moment, further amused and easily reading Mihawk’s instinct to find a sharp weapon.
“I’ll walk you down to the docks tomorrow. I’ve bought you passage on the monthly trade ship. They’ll take you back to Congreg Island.”
That would be the most efficient way for him to get back to Water 7 to get a new boat, barring asking Shanks for direct passage on the Red Force. Mihawk wouldn’t have been able to plan it better himself.
He also definitely wasn’t setting foot on the Red Force. Shanks wouldn’t be able to stop himself from keeping Mihawk for at least a few months.
Mihawk gave no outward indication he could track, but Shanks saw his agreement to the arrangement nevertheless. Shanks nodded to himself and stepped back up to the bed.
He leaned over and brushed Mihawk’s hair back.
Mihawk’s stomach tightened and curled over as Shanks leaned.
Shanks pressed a kiss, chaste and sweet, against his brow.
“My beautiful Hawk,” Shanks murmured, close enough for Mihawk to feel the vibrations even though Shanks wasn’t touching him anymore, “you don’t have to worry about anything."
Mihawk didn’t know which was worse, the way the Conquerer’s Will accompanying the words felt like pins and needles, or the way something small in him felt settled like underneath a warm quilt.