((Issho/Fujitora x Reader, romantically. Part 1 out of 2.))

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A month had passed since Doflamingo's fall on Dressrosa and Fujitora's crew was still not allowed to step into any marine bases, let alone return to Marineford. Least not without those pirates' heads.

You knew if that condition would stay, so would your absence at headquarters. There was no way your superior would behead StrawHat Luffy. Not after their clash shortly before you left the island.

While this meant that you had so much more paperwork to take care of because you had to transfer captured criminals to other ships and crews and send them off to the marine bases they were to be judged at, it also meant that your captain put his believes and morals above his duty.

Frankly, it was admirable.

You had never seen someone so honest and true to themselves before. He even apologized for everything, took the blame and the shame for things he didn't do, talked back to Akainu without hesitation and now dealt with the punishment uncomplainingly.
Such mental strength was rare and you really looked up to your admiral for that.

Being his personal assistant -slash- secretary and the strategist of the crew, you were by his side pretty much 24/7. He couldn't do his own paperwork for obvious reasons so it was your job to take care of that and to help him plan battles or simple management issues regarding supplies.

But you also served as his eyes sometimes.
Usually, he was able to get by just fine with his walking cane -which simultaneously was also his sword- and his keen sense of hearing but in unfamiliar areas with uneven grounds, confusing layouts, low ceilings or loud noises, it was always better to have you guide him.

Something you noticed rather quickly after starting to work for him a few months ago was that his ears were much better than anybody else's. They probably got way sharper when he lost his sight to make up for the lack of it but even then; the precision of his hearing still surprised you.
After all, he was able to predict on which field the ball would end up in during roulette just by listening to how hard the ball was thrown and how fast the device spun. At least, that's what you assumed was happening. He couldn't possibly be that lucky after all.

How he knew which field was which? You didn't know that.
You had tried asking him a few times after he won yet another round at a local casino but all he said in response was that it was but a mere hunch or that lady luck was on his side. Clearly, he wasn't one to boast with his talents.
Another thing you liked about him.
He was humble despite his powerful position.

Though if there was something you had to criticise about your admiral then it would probably be his gambling habit. He even went so far as to leave literal lives up to a game, shown back on Dressrosa when he agreed to pursue StrawHat Luffy only if the thrown dice would show anything but the red one.
That was the one thing you couldn't understand.

You were marines. It was natural to fight pirates... right?

Ever since you could remember, your superiors always told you to waste no mercy on those criminals. They were breaking the law and thus hurting the society so you had to be dutiful and bring them in.
Failure was not an option.

Although Fujitora's way of thinking appeared to be much less drastic. It felt more.. humane.
That sometimes confused you, probably because you were used to seeing everything in black and white. The thought of the grey zone only made everything so complicated. Some pirates were good and some marines were bad. How were you supposed to tell which was which? What if they lied to deceive you?

Simply seeing all marines as good and all pirates as bad wasn't as nerve-wracking. But of course, as you had experienced on Dressrosa, that way of thinking often blocked you from seeing the full truth and could lead to some much too radical thinking, which also wasn't a good thing for a marine.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, you put down the quill and pinched the bridge of your nose.
You were supposed to be filling out a transfer form for a recently arrested bandit leader but all these thoughts kept distracting you from it.
Behind the larger desk in the middle of the office sat Fujitora, one of his hands trailing over a paper slowly. He wore a concentrated expression, his purely white eyes slightly open even if they didn't see anything.

Since he was blind and you usually read papers for him out loud, there were some cases where headquarters send important files in braille. Classified information that you weren't allowed to read.
Fujitora had complained about it at first, arguing that you were trustworthy but Akainu had simply responded with something among the lines of 'it's protocol' and went through with it anyway.
You didn't mind it as much now. Having heard your captain tell the whole meeting that you were competent enough to be trusted with secret files was enough to make up for the lack of faith of any other admiral. Even if they were the fleet-admiral. Sometimes you still thought about it and how sure Fujitora looked when he said it.

While you were busy thinking about that day, you didn't notice how Fujitora had stopped moving his fingers and was carefully listening into the room.
Only when his deep voice sounded through the silence did you snap out of it.
"Is there a problem, (Y/n)-san?" he said with a tilt of his head toward your direction, "I hear you've stopped writing."

You grew slightly warm, embarrassed that he had caught you slacking and stuttered for a response.
"Oh! Uh, n-no, Sir! Just taking a small break, is all."

The man smiled, moving his head to face you directly, "you can take a big break too, if you wish. You've been assisting me nonstop today again."

"Well," you said, reaching up to scratch behind your ear while using the other hand to pick up the quill and dip it into ink again,"that is my job after all."

A gentle chuckle sounded from Fujitora as his smile grew and he turned his head back to face his desk. He was probably used to your habit of overworking yourself already since you did it almost every day.

"Would you be so kind as to make us some tea?" the admiral requested, knowing exactly that this was the easiest way to get you to stop working for a short while.

You responded with a quick 'of course, Sir' and wrote the last word of the current paper you had been working on before putting the feathery pen away again to get up. Hopefully the ink on the quill wouldn't dry before you came back.

Leaving the large office to walk through the ship's hallways and head to the kitchen, you greeted some of your few crewmates that were on the ship right now and thought about what kind of tea you should make this time.

You settled with simple green tea, seeing how Fujitora complimented it quite a bit when you had made it for him before.

The tea was quickly prepared and you used the time you had to wait for it to be done to do some stretching in the kitchen of your crew's ship. Sitting around all day was making your muscles sore so the movement was welcome.
As you were pushing up your arms into the air to loosen them, you heard the door open and glanced over to see one of your crewmates enter the room. He was known under the nickname of Cocoa because he had the peculiar habit of constantly drinking it.

Cocoa waved to you and you stopped stretching to greet him back.
"Hey, (Y/n)?" the older man said, moving to stand besides you as he rummaged through a shelf, "did you read my morning patrol's report yet?"

You hummed before shaking your head, watching him follow his usual routine of making choco milk, "Afraid not, no. The bandit we got in shackles had me working through a stack of paperwork all day. Why?"

"I wrote it down in the report but I'll just tell you directly now," the marine said, filling a cup with cold milk before adding brown powder and mixing it, "the gang of that bandit you mentioned seems to be up to something. Maybe working to get him back from us somehow."

Perking up, you blinked at the man. "What makes you think so? And why didn't you report this immediately?"

"Because I wasn't sure if it was worth mentioning and I might be wrong," he continued while sipping from his cold cocoa calmly, "we saw that a bunch of their traps from the forest were missing this morning. I didn't think any of it then but after doing some discussing with the others we agreed that it was weird."

"I'll let Fujitora know then," you told your crewmate while sighing.
Sometimes these men were incredibly hard to understand for you. Instead of instantly letting you know about something strange they saw, they'd rather sit and wait until you read it in a report.

Still drinking his choco milk, the marine nodded and patted your shoulder with his free hand. "Thanks, (Y/n)," Cocoa smiled at you and left the kitchen to go back to wherever he had been before, taking his strange choice of drink with him.

You looked at the steaming kettle of tea in front of you and went over what you had been told.
Why would they remove their traps? What kind of traps had it been? How does that help them in getting back their leader from your ship?
Worrying over possible options of how this could end very horribly, you took out the teabags and put kettle as well as two cups on a tray to walk back to Fujitora's office.

Perhaps your admiral knew better.

Slipping into the quiet room and putting down the tea on a nearby table, you decided to address your crewmate's concern while pouring the still steaming drink into both cups.
"Issho-san," you started to gain his attention. Once he made a hum to let you know he was listening, you continued, "one of our men has just reported to me that the bandits' traps have been missing since earlier today."

You picked up a cup and carried it over to Fujitora's desk, carefully placing it onto a free spot to not stain any papers on accident. Not that Fujitora would notice even if you did.

The man lifted his hands from the papers with braille and reached to pick up the tea instead, producing a deep rumble from his chest that made you believe his entire ribcage must be vibrating.

"I'd rather not alert them by sending a large patrol their way. Perhaps we can find out what they are planning by going ourselves," the older man said, sharing his thoughts with you.

"'Ourselves', Sir? Do you mean, just you and me?" you questioned in confusion, not really getting why he didn't want to just send a regular scout, "we don't even know if they actually are planning something. Maybe they're just retreating now that we've taken their head. Is it not.. well, overkill to go yourself? No offence, Sir."

Fujitora laughed; a pleasant sound that you liked very much. He sounded amused by your worries.
"None taken," he responded casually and took a sip of his tea, letting out a pleased hum before continuing the talk, "I simply believe it would do both of us good to take a break from this office and go outside again. As far as I know, you haven't left the ship in the past five days, (Y/n)-san."

Suppressing an awkward noise, you looked to the side and sipped from your own tea, the bitterness freshening up your mouth again.
It was true. You haven't stopped working in this office for almost an entire week. Not that you disliked your work or Fujitora's company but it could get a little stuffy and boring in here.

Perhaps going out into the woods and doing some work under the sun and with fresh air around would make for a nice change of pace. Older reports did mention the rather beautiful landscape of this island.

"... Fine," you mumbled after a while of having mulled it over, "I doubt we'll be needing any firepower and even if a conflict should break out, I trust you to be capable enough to fight for the both of us, Sir."

You were not trained in combat like most other marines so going out into the field was riskier for you. Although you did know how to fight and defend yourself in the worst case scenarios, your focus still laid on strategic battles.

Fujitora smiled and put down his already empty cup, looking pleased with your answer.
"Of course," he said, "you won't need to worry about your safety as long as you stick with me."

Now it was your turn to smile at his answer.
Although he couldn't see it, you were sure that he was able to somehow sense your mood. He did mention that he could tell if someone had malicious intent or not once. You were pretty sure that was part of his observation haki. It wasn't unheard of that some people could sense emotions or even hear thoughts with it after all. Or perhaps it was just a really spot on intuition.

"I'll go and inform the crew of your decision, Sir. Please wait to get ready until I come back."
You told Fujitora, already knowing that he wouldn't wait for you to help him but still wanting to let him know that you had the intention of doing so anyways.

It didn't take very long to get everything in motion, mainly because preparing for two people to leave was much quicker than preparing for a whole patrol of around ten marines.
Your choco milk crewmate appeared relieved to see you and Fujitora step out onto the sunlit deck after a few minutes of your announcement. He was standing near the wooden ramp, saluting like everybody else when your captain passed and began his way down to the small village's port.
You nodded at Cocoa and then followed Fujitora hastily to keep him from -literally- running around blindly in this unknown place.

Stepping onto the stone paved ground, you took a moment to take a deep breath of the fresh air, enjoying how it filled up your lungs and washed out the stuffy air from the office.
Today's weather was quite pleasant too. Not too hot and not too cold, just the right mix of sunlight and lush breeze for an afternoon walk- I mean, patrol in the woods.

Jogging after Fujitora, you had to speed up your steps quite a bit simply because the admiral was so damn tall and his legs much longer than yours.
Sure, there were humans who were even bigger than he was -for example Akainu- but for someone of average height like yourself, his 8'10 frame could be rather overwhelming at times.

The admiral halted for a moment, allowing you to catch up to him.
The soft wind made his long marine coat flow slowly, showing the light-purple yukata and the dark-lilac cloak he was always wearing underneath. It was where he got the alias Fujitora, which basically means 'wisteria tiger', from.
You liked the nickname. It matched his calm, honest and powerful personality.
Although you also liked his real name, Issho, since it sounded so gentle and smooth, which also fit the man despite his rough looks.

Now walking by his side, you made sure to alert Fujitora of any obstacles or hindrances in his path that he wouldn't be able to notice himself while moving through the idyllic village and its large fields of golden corn.
The sight was calming and reminded you of easier times, when you had been a kid, living without worries. It saddened you a little that your admiral couldn't see the peaceful nature around him but you didn't want to question his decision of blinding himself. He had his reasons and it was not your place to argue about them.

Deciding to focus on the more pleasant parts of your little 'mission', you glanced up to Fujitora, looking at his relaxed face, the X-shaped scar across his forehead and eyes, his -mind you, rather fluffy looking- beard and messy dark hair.
He brought a smile to your face without even saying or doing anything and you looked back to the front, where a green forest came into view.

A few marines that had been sent out earlier to stand guard at the houses just to be sure that the civilians were safe greeted you and shortly reported that everything was quiet before you went on your way, guiding your admiral into the woods.

Although you rarely exchanged words on the walk to your destination, it was a rather comfortable silence and you enjoyed Fujitora simply being there. His presence made you feel safe.

After a bit of heading deeper into the woods, listening to birds chirp and leaves rustle, you halted. Taking out a small piece of paper on which you had jotted down notes about the whereabouts of the bandits' base, you made a small hum and tugged at Fujitora's yukata's sleeve to make him stop as well.
"As you can already tell we've entered the woods where there were reported to be traps until this morning and have reached the point from which we need to go off course to reach the cave that is serving as the bandits' base of operation further in the forest," summing up the situation to make sure that you were on the same page, you shortly went over the notes again, memorised them for good and stuffed the paper away into your pocket.

Fujitora turned to face you as you spoke, nodding his head and tapping his makeshift cane on the ground a few times, probably to test how uneven it was.
"Then let us go forth slower. Please guide me again, (Y/n)-san," he requested, holding out his free arm for you to hook your own around. While you had been a little embarrassed to walk around arm in arm with him during your first few weeks as his personal assistant, you had soon grown used to it and didn't think much of it anymore whenever you did it now.
Especially since it wasn't like you did it because you enjoyed it. You did it because it was part of your job.
Yeah, that was totally the only reason.

Slipping your slender arm around his much more powerful one, you ignored the warmth in your chest and instead began to lead him off the path, between some bushes and into a slightly denser part of the forest. There was a lot of undergrowth around here, making it hard to tell where you were stepping even with eyesight.
You tightened your hold on Fujitora's arm and pushed against him slightly, altering his course further to the right when he followed your guidance.

"Can you hear or feel anything, Issho-san? There doesn't seem to be anything around these parts even though we are getting quite close," you asked the man after a while of walking. It had been relaxing at first but somewhere along the way, you had started to get a peculiar feeling of danger for some reason.

Fujitora appeared to have the same gut feeling as you, judging by his serious expression. "I cannot feel nor hear anything," he said but he didn't sound relieved at all, "not even birds or other creatures."

You noticed this as well now. It was abnormally quiet.
There had been so much noise from birds and rodents before but now there was only the subtle sound of wind in the treetops as if all animals had vanished a while ago.
Usually this was not a good sign.

"Let us be careful, (Y/n)-san," Fujitora reminded you, leaning down slightly to your height in order to be able to talk quieter. You responded by nodding and humming, afraid that your voice would be too loud in the tense silence. And maybe also not wanting the admiral to hear your voice crack because he got closer to you.

The cave should be just a few more trees away from view so you decided to play it extra safe and went slightly in front of your admiral after letting go of his arm, aiming to scout out the close area in which he'd have to walk while also gaining a bit more distance to cool down again.
You didn't even make it further than two steps when a metallic snap sounded and you lost track of your surroundings.

The last thing you noticed was a sharp pain in your leg, the feeling of falling and Fujitora's voice calling your name.
Then your head hit into something solid and you were out of it.