@summerxmelodies
Getting to the rank of admiral wasn’t easy. Even if one managed the get their hands on an extremely powerful devil fruit, it was no guarantee that one would reach the admiralty, or even vice-admiralty. It certainly helped, of course, but in the New World (where most of the creatures requiring an admirals attention dwelled), it was haki that reigned supreme. Roger and Garp had proven that. And the road to mastering haki was a very long one, even if one did have the aptitude for that particular gift.
This was no less true for Borsalino than it had been for anyone else. It had taken him years to climb to his current position, and in that time, he had served on all sorts of ships surrounded by all sorts of people. Some had been like Sakazuki, who’d burn the world to the ground if that was what it took to get rid of the filth. Others had been like Kuzan, who’d rather only target the ones that had gone out of their way to hurt the innocent or threaten the world in some way. A couple had even been like himself, those whose values didn’t quite fit with either extreme.
In the time that they had served together on the Valiant Thorn back in Kizaru’s Vice-Admiral days, Summers Warren had definitely come across more as someone who leaned more on the Sakazuki side of things. He’d been pretty adamant in those ideals of his, of that “Perfect Justice” he sought. Still, they’d gotten along reasonably well, at least on Borsalino’s end. They never got in each other’s way, and they lent a hand to each other when needed, which was more than the Admiral could say for some of the shipmates he’d had in his career.
So when Warren had come to him asking if he’d spare a moment to meet the man’s daughter, well, how could Kizaru refuse? Sure, it would’ve been absolutely absurd for a vice-admiral to waste an admiral’s time with something like that normally, but it was different for old shipmates, you know?~ When you survived the Grand Line on the same boat as someone else, it formed a...well, bond might be pushing it, but a connection, certainly. It was the sort of thing where, even if you didn’t particularly like your crewmates, you’d still help ‘em out and do ‘em a favor here or there. It wasn’t the sort of thing you really thought about; it was just what you did.
The yellow-coded Admiral was shaken from his rumination on the unspoken sailor’s code by a knock on his door. Ah, that Summers; ever the punctual one. Borsalino stood up from his desk and walked around the front of it as he said “Come on in; the door’s unlocked, you know?~”