Broken Faith

Observation 6: Weakness is sometimes a blessing

"Hey."

Your brow furrowed. These documents really were worrying. Ideally you would have had ample resources and time to deal with them, but spontaneity was always a hindrance. You were going to have to do a bit of prioritisation.

"Hey, Angel..."

The most pressing issue however was... Red highlighter in hand, you circled around a number far larger than it should have been. Gran Tesoro's 'tributes' were growing higher and higher every passing year. Even for a casino, it was getting a little frightening. Not even gambling could produce that high profits... could it?

"Aangel..."

But you couldn't exactly ask them to reduce the tribute. You'd met Tesoro himself once or twice and even then you could feel just how smarmy he was. A shudder ran through your body. You didn't even want to think about what excuse he'd pull out of his ass. 'Oh but I just wanted to show my allegiance to the great and powerful ones.' The usual sort of bullshit. Perhaps if you counteracted it with sending an undercover-

A heavy weight plopped onto your head. "Aaaaaaaangeeeeel..."

Oh come on...

Enough was enough! The veins in your face tensed. "What is it? And how many times must I remind you, we're possibly being monitored. Don't use that name here."

Ace pouted, tossing a lazy arm over your shoulder, "But I'm boooored...I wanna beat people up..."

"Then go rejoin Luffy and Sabo."

"But I wanna stay with yooooou..."

Who was it who said he was older than you?

"Well, tough." Removing the arm you went back to your stack of papers. And grimaced. God they were never ending. And there were so many more still waiting for you back at Marie Geoise... You felt a headache begin to build up in your temples. "I have work to do and it would be suspicious for you to be wandering around without me, so you're going to have to stay put until then."

"Urgh you and your work." Skulking back, Ace pivoted and tossed himself onto the recently made king-sized bed. Your nose wrinkled. You were going to have to remake that before you went to sleep later. "Why'd you even bother with that stuff anyways? Fighting people's way funner."

"I'm not doing this for fun..."

"Huh?"

"Nothing." You waved the mumble away, pinching the bridge of your nose. "It was nothing."

"Fine, don't tell me... See if I care..." Once again he flopped dramatically on the bed. "Just... lemme know when you're done."

When was it ever done? "Will do."

"Cool."

Alright! You readied yourself once more. Working brain back on! The Tesoro thing could be put aside for now, you couldn't do much without consulting Kong, so perhaps a glance over the Marine budget proposals was in order. Let's see here... Fleet Admiral, no you do not need more goat feed... You got some last month. Garp, oh Garp, how many times did you need to say that a rice cracker house is completely unfeasable. Let alone the waste of money, how the hell would something that fragile remain upright. Not to mention even making it-

"Can we at least go look round the palace a bit?"

WHAM!

The pen bounced out of the inkwell as your fist hit the desk, sending a fractured line of ink rolling across the documents.

Ace was on his feet in an instant. "Hey, wait is everything okay?! Something happen?!"

"Silence."