One Piece: Lust Haki

The training ground was empty at seven in the morning and it was empty at seven-oh-five and at seven-ten I went through the warm-up alone and at seven-fifteen I put the practice sword back on the rack and left.

Isuka didn't come.

She didn't come the next morning either. I stood in the sand for fifteen minutes and the sun came up and the other training groups filled in around me and nobody used our corner because our corner had been our corner for four months. A recruit started to set up on the post nearest our spot and another recruit pulled him away and said something I didn't hear and they moved to the far end.

I went to breakfast. Tashigi asked how the spar went. I told her it didn't. She looked at her eggs and didn't say anything else about it.

The second day was worse than the first because the first day could be anything. She was sick. She had a duty assignment. The second day was a choice.

I didn't chase her. I wanted to. The impulse was there every time I saw her in the corridor or across the mess hall, the vermilion hair and the bandaged hands and the rapier at her hip and the jaw set tight. But chasing would be about me and she needed to not have me in the middle of it right now.

Tashigi had said fix it. I wasn't sure this was fixing. It felt like waiting.

The second evening I went to the barracks rooftop.

The rooftop was flat stone and low walls and a view of the harbor and the compound below and the execution platform lit against the skyline. Recruits came up here to smoke or be alone. The weather was good tonight. Clear sky, the last of the orange light on the water, the harbor wind steady and cool.

Isuka was sitting against the low wall with her knees up and her arms crossed on top of them and the rapier on the stone beside her.

She looked at me. I looked at her.

I sat down next to her. Left about a foot of space. The stone was warm from the day's sun and the wall behind us was solid and the harbor was spread out below and the patrol cutter was making its circuit.

Neither of us said anything for a while. The orange light faded to pink and the pink faded and the first stars were out over the harbor and somewhere below us a group of recruits were arguing about whose turn it was to clean the latrine.

"You don't owe me an explanation." Isuka's voice was rough. "We're rivals. You don't report to me. What you do when you're not sparring is your business."

Her knee pressed against mine. She didn't move it.

"I shouldn't have asked," she said. "On the ground. That was-" She stopped. Her jaw worked. "That was out of line."

"It wasn't."

"It was. You have your life and I have mine and we spar and that's the arrangement and I forgot the arrangement for a minute and I'm-" She stopped. The word wouldn't come. Her mouth closed on it.

"Isuka."

She was looking at the harbor. Her arms crossed on her knees and the bandages on her hands and her profile against the darkening sky.

"You're not just my rival," I said. "You know that."

She went still. The knee against mine pressed harder, a fraction, and her fingers tightened on her own arms.

"I wake up at seven every morning because you're there," I said. "I count the days when you're not." I was looking at the harbor. "That's not a rival thing."

"Then what is it," she said. Quiet.

"I don't know yet. But it's more than sparring and you already knew that."

She was quiet for a long time. The stars were brighter and the wind was cooler and her knee was still against mine.

"Same time tomorrow," she said. "The spar."

"Yeah."

She stood. Picked up the rapier. Brushed the stone dust off her trousers. She walked toward the rooftop door and got to it and stopped.

"Kael."

My first name. She'd called me Vance for four months. In the spar, in the mess hall, in every conversation since the first week.

I looked at her. She was in the doorway with one hand on the frame and the light from the stairwell behind her and her face was in shadow and the vermilion hair was dark against the light.

"Whoever she is," Isuka said. "She's lucky."

She went inside. The door closed. The stairwell light cut off and the rooftop was dark except for the stars and the harbor lights.

I sat against the wall. My knee was cold where hers had been.

The world I came from had one answer for this. One person, one life. That answer didn't fit here. I didn't have a better one yet. I just knew the old one was too small.

Somewhere on the fourth floor a woman with red lipstick was probably reading tactical assessments with her shoes off. My ribs still ached from three days ago. Isuka had called me by my name.

I stayed on the roof until the patrol cutter had made its full circuit. Then I went to my bunk.

Tomorrow at seven.