Broken Faith

Observation 29: Admin work waits for no one

Kong's eyes grew wide, then narrowed, then grew again as he continued reading the report. You lounged on the chair in front of him, the plush velvet one reserved for you, doing your best to appear like you had more than a few hours of sleep over the past several days and hadn't been working on various papers and documents. It wasn't working, obviously, but maintaining the pretence was the only thing actually keeping you awake.

"What in the... Uuuuugh," groaning, he pinched the bridge of his nose and tossed the papers to one side. "If you'll forgive my language, Miss Saint, this is bullshit."

"No no, you took the words right out of my mouth," you murmured, wondering just what shapes the clouds outside Kong's window were going to transform into this time. Yeah you'd already lost the plot just a little bit.

"I knew the situation was ridiculous when you'd first called-" rising out of his chair, Kong paced back and forth in front of you. Meaty fingers rubbing the three points of his goatee- "but this is outright insane."

"Yuuup. Don't I know it."

He whirled on you, perhaps irked by your your lethargic response, "This was the guy you recommended, Miss Saint."

"And I have regretted it ever since," you replied blankly.

"That might be, but don't for a moment that just because you were the one who was kid..." The muscles in his face slackened, "The idiot really did try to kidnap a Celestial Dragon... He actually tried..."

"That he did." If there was one thing the tiredness was doing for you, it was that it had amplified all of your anger and frustration by over tenfold. "So don't you dare try to pin this on me just because I put in a recommendation. You know as well as I that he was a shoe in for the position anyways, thanks to his illustrious father."

Kong slumped back into his seat. "Yeah. You're right."

Of course you were right. It wasn't as if you had been spending all these days and nights gathering up evidence to twist this whole debacle into something you could benefit from. No that would have been insane! And masochistic! ...Why did you hate yourself so much? You really had to ask yourself that at some point.

"My apologies, Miss Saint." Dipping forwards, Kong bowed in your direction. "This has been... a stressful time for the World Government, to put it lightly."

"Oh I'm not surprised." You shifted your weight onto your one usable arm. "Not only has one of the most prominent government strongholds in Paradise been attacked by pirates, the agents defeated, and the entire structure razed to the ground, but the entire world knows about it!"

It was inevitable. Even though government agents had tried their hardest to silence the news before it spread too much, there had been too many people at Enies Lobby itself to keep the truth from spreading. You might have been able to talk to Franky to at least stop the rest of the Franky Family from painting an even bigger target on their backs... but you didn't think that he'd be all that pleased to hear from you right that moment. Especially when you were prioritising your own reputation as a cold and heartless World Noble. You needed to go full radio silence for a bit, otherwise it would be rather suspicious.

The last thing you wanted after being kidnapped was for Garling to run you through just because you'd made a stupid mistake in your plans. A mistake that was even more likely than normal due to your... aha... imperfect sleep schedule.

Kong shot you a dangerous look, "What is it with incidents involving you and Straw Hat Luffy recently? First was Alabasta, then this? The first place you go to after your ah..." He couldn't exactly call it house arrest, given that according to government bylaws you were 'technically' a higher rank than him. And that you weren't a child anymore. "One might think that he was deliberately targeting you at this point."