Chapter 445 - 96
The matter of the Fuwa Fuwa no Mi had barely settled when a visitor arrived.
Rosinante looked at the woman standing before him with mild curiosity. She wore a Marine coat over her shoulders, and while her height wasn't exceptional by the standards of this world, a pair of extraordinarily long legs that seemed to account for nearly two-thirds of her entire frame gave the impression of someone much taller. A fitted pair of shorts left those legs thoroughly on display, and a spider tattoo curled across one thigh, adding something sharp and electric to an already striking appearance. By any measure, she was the kind of woman entire ports remembered.
This was Momousagi, celebrated beauty of the Marines.
"What did the Navy send you here for?" Rosinante asked.
"Who do you think?" She rolled her eyes. "You're a Celestial Dragon now. Vice chairman of the Elder Council, no less. The Marines have an obligation to provide protection for someone of your standing. Fleet Admiral Sengoku sent me personally."
The official reason, at least, was that simple.
The real picture was considerably less straightforward. Sengoku had put a great deal of work into this particular assignment. Protecting Rosinante was beside the point. What he actually wanted was for Momousagi to obtain, by whatever means necessary, the power Rosinante had brought with him from another world. And whatever means necessary, Sengoku had made clear, meant exactly that, including means she might find personally objectionable.
He had suggested it carefully at first, then less carefully, implying with increasing directness that if the situation called for it, she should be prepared to sacrifice anything, up to and including herself, to draw Rosinante's secrets out of him. The urgency had only sharpened when word reached Sengoku that Rosinante could extract Devil Fruits directly from their users. Both the Fleet Admiral and the World Government had become considerably more agitated after that, convinced that this ability had to have originated somewhere beyond their understanding of the world.
Momousagi had understood immediately what Sengoku was actually asking. She had been furious. She was a Vice Admiral. She had spent her life building something she was proud of, a sense of justice she held to even when it was inconvenient, a dignity she had never compromised. Being told to use her body as a tool to charm information out of a pirate felt less like a mission and more like being asked to dismantle herself. In some ways it sat worse than the idea of dying.
But Sengoku had been persistent, and eventually she had agreed.
Not, however, to do it his way.
Seduction was too blunt. Too cheap. Momousagi had no interest in playing that particular game. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it properly. She was going to capture Rosinante the right way, which meant capturing his heart.
She had the confidence for it. She had always had the confidence for it. Whatever a man's reputation, whatever his title, as long as he was a man, she believed she could manage him. Even the Dragon King.
She had heard, arriving here, that Rosinante already had a woman. A child too, apparently. But that was hardly disqualifying. He was a Celestial Dragon now. In this world, commoners observed monogamy, but nobility had never felt bound by that particular convention, and Celestial Dragons least of all.
"Protect you?" Rosinante gave her an amused look. "You think you're capable of that?"
"I'm aware you're powerful, and that you have an entire Imperial Guard around you at all times," Momousagi said. "You don't need my protection specifically. But you hold a senior position among the Celestial Dragons, and the Marines are expected to provide an official escort for someone of that rank. Besides, there are certain situations where having the Navy involved makes things smoother."
Rosinante looked at her for a moment.
He already knew why she was here. He had known before she opened her mouth. The World Government's habits were predictable enough that he could have written the script himself. Turning her away would accomplish nothing. They would simply send someone else, probably several someone elses, all of them nosing around and causing more disruption than one person would. At least Momousagi was easy on the eyes.
"I don't need a guard," he said pleasantly. "But I am short a maid. If you have no objections, you're welcome to stay in that capacity."
"A... maid?" The disbelief on Momousagi's face was total.
A maid. He wanted her to be a maid.
She was a Vice Admiral. Setting aside the rank entirely, she was the kind of woman men treated like something precious, something to be admired and protected and handled with extraordinary care. And Rosinante was looking at her like she might be useful for fetching things.
She was halfway through genuine outrage when something shifted in her expression.
"So that's your preference," she said, her voice dropping into something warmer and more deliberate as she looked at him sidelong.
It had just occurred to her that Rosinante's woman, the one she had heard about, had apparently begun as his maid as well. The implication arranged itself in her mind without much effort.
"You're thinking something extremely impolite right now," Rosinante said. "But suit yourself. If it's too much for you, feel free to leave."
"No," Momousagi said, her mouth twisting into something that wasn't quite a pout. "I'll do it. I'll be the maid."
She wasn't going back empty-handed. Going back empty-handed would mean admitting defeat, and admitting defeat to a man, in a contest of this particular nature, was something she categorically refused to do.
And so the Sky-Veiling Palace gained a new maid.
A thoroughly unconvincing one. She wore the uniform, at least. But the actual work of being a maid, the attending, the tidying, the general domestic competence that the role implied, turned out to be entirely beyond her. Momousagi had been raised being waited upon. Ordering her to wait upon others was roughly equivalent to handing a sword to someone who had never held one and asking them to perform surgery.
The Sky-Veiling Palace began punctuating its days with the sound of porcelain hitting the floor.
Rosinante found himself quietly wondering whether he had made a mistake.
...