Finn's office had been cleaned in his absence. He noticed this immediately when he pushed open the door: no dust on the windowsill, no staleness in the air, the papers on his desk stacked with the particular neatness of someone who had filed things carefully rather than simply moved them. Someone on staff had been maintaining the room for eleven months.
He found this quietly satisfying. There was something about returning to a space that had been kept ready for you that communicated, without anyone saying it, that the return had been expected and anticipated. He approved.
The room was empty. Hina had gone to rest, and the others with her. The return of a ship after a long absence had the rhythm of a long day after a long voyage, and no one who had earned rest should be denied it on his account.
Finn put a kettle on and made himself a cup of tea.
He sat down, reached for the Den Den Mushi, and contacted Gion.
The reason was straightforward: he'd heard from Borsalino that Zephyr had taken the cadets to the New World, and the New World, at the moment, included Edward Weevil operating with the energy of someone who had not yet been introduced to his ceiling. The Weevil situation was not something Finn was particularly worried about, given that Gion was present and Gion's assessment of her own limits was precisely calibrated. But Zephyr was older than he'd been at Marineford's battles, and history had already provided one expensive lesson about what happened when good instructors were insufficiently cautious about who they let get close.
Better to call. Better to mention it.
He rubbed his nose while the Den Den Mushi connected. The nose was still tender, and there was a small amount of blood that he hadn't fully cleaned off. He noticed this and felt a renewed sense of irritation.
The sequence of events in Sengoku's office had not gone as elegantly as Finn had envisioned when he suggested the demonstration. The Dark-Dark Fruit nullification field, applied to a Devil Fruit user who had decades of instinctive reliance on that ability, produced a specific and predictable response: the user panicked and lashed out. This was entirely understandable from a neurological standpoint. It was less understandable from the standpoint of an Admiral who had been told, explicitly, that the demonstration would be controlled and brief.
The result had been Finn landing a fist into Sengoku's eye socket, and Sengoku's palm finding Finn's nose in the half-second before Chief of Staff Ahe's urgent knock on the door gave both parties a reason to stop.
Fleet Admiral Sengoku had a black eye.
Admiral Finn had a nosebleed.
Both of them had agreed, without discussing it, to attribute the injuries to a separate and entirely plausible incident involving paperwork.
Finn was still irritated. Sengoku had said he wanted to see the ability. Finn had shown him the ability. The response to experiencing the nullification field firsthand was Sengoku's problem, not his.
"Hello? Finn?"
Gion's voice came through the Den Den Mushi with the warmth of someone who was genuinely pleased to hear from someone and was choosing not to perform that pleasure into something excessive.
The irritation dissolved immediately.
"Are you all right?" Finn asked. "I heard you went out with Zephyr."
"Yes, New World deployment. Some trouble just now, but it's been dealt with." A pause. "You're back at Headquarters, from the sound of it?"
The word "trouble" registered but didn't concern him. In Finn's assessment, genuine trouble for Gion and Zephyr in the New World meant something at Yonko-level interference, which was the kind of thing that didn't get described as "some trouble" in a calm voice immediately afterward. He filed it as a routine skirmish and moved on.
"Just arrived today," he said.
What followed was less a structured conversation than a comfortable resumption of something that had been paused for eleven months. They talked about Alabasta, about the Dark-Dark Fruit's properties, about Sengoku's changed demeanor, about the specific absurdity of the demonstration in the Fleet Admiral's office. Gion listened to the nosebleed incident with a laugh that Finn could hear clearly through the Den Den Mushi and then spent an enjoyable two minutes pointing out that he deserved it for showing Sengoku his face when Sengoku still had hands available.
He couldn't really argue with the logic.
Only then, at the end, did Finn remember the reason he'd called.
"By the way," he said. "I've been hearing reports about a pirate in the New World who's been calling himself Whitebeard II. Edward Weevil. He's been working his way through crews connected to the real Whitebeard's legacy. Given where you are, just be careful around him. He's not at Yonko level but he's not someone to underestimate either."
There was a brief silence on the other end.
Finn frowned slightly. "What? Did something happen?"
"Nothing dangerous," Gion said. The tone had the specific quality of someone measuring how to phrase something. "It's just that the person you're describing... we just met him. A few minutes before you called."
Finn went still.
"And?"
"We're fine," she said.
"What about Zephyr?"
"I'm perfectly fine, thank you." Zephyr's voice came through the Den Den Mushi with the brisk clarity of someone who had been listening for exactly this question and found it mildly offensive. "I'm right here. Why does everyone assume something's happened to me?"
Finn released the tension in his shoulders. "Good. I was worried about the same pattern as before. Weevil's been cutting through some experienced people, so I thought if you actually ran into him--"
"Cough."
Gion had made a small sound. Not a cough from illness. The specific, throat-clearing kind that preceded an embarrassing explanation.
Finn's frown returned. "What?"
"I... perhaps should have been better informed." She paused. "About Weevil."
"What does that mean?"
Zephyr answered for her, with the uncomplicated honesty of an old instructor who had watched enough people be embarrassed by their own efficiency to find it genuinely amusing. "It means you're too late, Finn. Gion dealt with him already. He's dead."
Finn sat with this for a moment.
He thought about the version of events that must have unfolded: Bakkin's miscalculation about the warship's threat level, the initial skirmish, Gion doing whatever Gion did when someone pointed something aggressive at her, and the outcome arriving considerably faster than Weevil's considerable raw power should theoretically have allowed.
He thought about whether Weevil had actually been as dangerous as Borsalino's comment about "Whitebeard's prime" had implied, and concluded that Borsalino's calibration on this particular subject might have been generous by some margin.
He thought about whether Weevil's death represented any particular loss and concluded that a man who had been used as a weapon by his supposed mother to rob the last belongings of people connected to Whitebeard's legacy was not someone the world would find itself missing.
"I see," Finn said.
They talked for a while longer about the exercise, about the cadet cohort, about Ace's performance and the assessment of Ain. Then Finn said goodbye, set the Den Den Mushi down, and took a long sip of his tea.
"Gion's gotten considerably stronger," he said to no one in particular.
It wasn't a surprise. If he thought about the trajectory from where she'd been when she first consumed the Rumble-Rumble Fruit to where she was now, with years of active field deployment and the focused development that came from someone with her specific commitment to refinement, the result was predictable. It was still satisfying to have it confirmed.
He was still sitting with that thought when the Den Den Mushi rang again.
He glanced at the pattern. Smoker.
"What can a Yonko do for me today?" he answered.
A brief silence. Then, in the voice of someone who had decided not to take the bait: "Admiral, please."
"I'm teasing. What's happening?"
"Gran Tesoro is ready," Smoker said. "We're at the point of setting a date. I wanted to check whether you'd be attending."
"I said I would," Finn said. "Send the invitation to Marineford when you've picked the date and I'll come representing Headquarters."
"Good." A pause. "There are also two individuals here who have been asking about you. They say you arranged their positions at Gran Tesoro."
"Names?"
"One is Issho. The other is Sphinx."
Finn's expression shifted. Right. He'd arranged that. Issho, who had the Float-Float Fruit and the particular kind of easy-going good sense that made him genuinely useful in a high-traffic civilian environment, and Sphinx, who had been with him for long enough to trust the arrangement. They'd gone ahead to Gran Tesoro directly, which meant Smoker had received them without prior verification from Finn.
"Yes, of course," Finn said, with the tone of someone who had remembered something slightly later than optimal but was committed to making it sound current. "Good people, both of them. Issho especially. You'll find him useful."
On the other end, Smoker let out a breath that communicated relief that he hadn't been smoothly swindled.
They discussed the opening logistics: the date, the invitation list, the question of which parties should receive invitations even if attendance was unlikely. Finn told him to send invitations to the Yonko crews across the board, including Whitebeard's people. The last war had left its marks and there was no value in letting distance calcify into permanent estrangement.
"Even the Revolutionary Army?" Smoker asked.
"It costs nothing to invite them," Finn said. "Whether they show up is entirely their business."
After he hung up, he sat for a moment and then reached for the Den Den Mushi again.
He thought, not for the first time, that being back at Marineford after eleven months away was considerably busier than being in Alabasta had been. In Alabasta, the constraints of the situation had imposed a kind of enforced simplicity. Here, everything that had accumulated in his absence was presenting itself for resolution simultaneously.
He called Stussy.
The Den Den Mushi rang for long enough that he assumed she was going to make him wait, and then she picked up with the particular voice of someone who had been doing something unhurried and had chosen to continue being unhurried even after answering.
"Admiral Finn," she said. "I didn't expect to be hearing from you so soon."
Something in the phrasing suggested she had opinions about the length of time that had passed since Alabasta and the absence of contact during it. Finn chose to address the implication indirectly.
"I was wondering if Her Majesty the Queen had any engagements in the near future that might be rearranged," he said, in the specific tone he used when being deliberately formal as a deflection strategy.
"Why?"
"I'm going to Gran Tesoro. I thought I'd see if you wanted to come along."
A pause. Then, with the undisguised pleasure of someone who had wanted to hear exactly this before remembering that she had the option of being difficult about it: "Really?"
She caught herself. The pleasure compressed back into something more measured. "You must need something from me," she said. "You wouldn't just be inviting me to enjoy yourself."
"Gran Tesoro is opening," Finn said. "You've been involved with the planning since before the construction started. It seems appropriate that you attend. Besides, I told you I'd take you when the time came."
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