The deal

None of us spoke for a while. In the end I decided to let him go if possible. It might be naive to just let him go but if they decide to seriously investigate I am not confident to hide all our traces and even though I am not afraid of them, having them as allies or at least not enemies seems a lot more beneficial. That is if they aren't already coming after us for whatever reason.

Also he might have already made a report before finding us. Since we didn't sense killing intent it's unlikely that they are coming specifically for us but I need to know what his purpose was first.

"Let's make a deal."

My words got everybody's attention as Hack looked at me. The rest still kept an eye on him

"Long story short I will let you go unharmed but I need to know the purpose of your mission. It's fine if you just tell me what you are allowed to tell."

My words surprised him. As an agent he should be a bit harder to read in my opinion but perhaps he has already . Anyways I had already made up my mind.

If it was something negotiable I really wouldn't mind letting him go but if his mission was to kidnap or even kill someone of my crew I will end him before making preparations for the aftermath.

I let him think about it for a bit since this might sound suspicious to him but in the end the decision was up to him. Luckily he decided to talk.

…

"My sniper rifle?"

Augur asked surprised.

"I just had to retrieve it without anyone learning about me."

"What's so important about this rifle?"

"I can't share any details on this."

"And what happens in the case of witnesses?"

"…"

He stayed silent and didn't answer my questions but that was answer enough in itself. Instead he changed the topic.

"If you don't know what powers that sniper has than there might be a way out of this. Just let me retrieve it."

This only increased my curiosity. Asking Augur where he got it from it turned out that he took it from a bounty hunter.

"I can't say much to that either but know that everything was secretly controlled."

Is what Hack said.

"Augur, take the new sniper and shoot at me on the count to 3. Sabo you will be counting."

"Hey! Didn't you listen to me?!"

"Are you sure captain."

I nodded to Augur's question and ignored Hack. I didn't plan to let himself shoot me, instead I would use future sight to see it before anything could happen.

Hack shouted at us to stop but was ignored as Sabo started to count. Although what I saw was something I wasn't ready for just yet.

Instead of a bullet I saw a yellow laser shoot out of the sniper.

"STOP!"

Stopping them in the last moment earned me once more confused gazes but that was fine. The weapon in Augur's seriously surprised me.

What I saw shooting out of the weapon wasn't a bullet but a beam. A laser beam to be precise. A laser beam that looked really familiar. One I had seen in the anime countless times.

It was Kizaru's laser attack! In Augur's hand it would be more powerful than having a whole battalion of pacifista later on! This is way too valuable.

Now things are clearer to me. The pacifista aren't known yet, perhaps not even a prototype exists, meaning this sniper contains top secret technology that might still be in development.

Exposing this would put the world government on us and lead to a detailed investigation in their labs putting possible spies in danger. Of course this were only speculations but that's not the main problem.

Still with this we can be a lot bolder on our adventure. But there are still problems. We don't know shit about maintaining this sniper or what kind of ammo it needs. The only ones who know beside the world government are…"

"Let's negotiate."

Turning to Hack I told him that.

"…What Are you talking about now?"

"There seem to have been a bounty hunter with this weapon before. I'm saying that instead of being targets it would be better for both of us if we became accomplices. I'm sure we can negotiate some terms that would profit both of us."

"… Are you out of your mind. There is zero trust between us, you don't know anything about the whole situation and the risks are huge."

"Quit it and report to your superior. Since you don't have the authority to decide such things ask for someone who has."

"And how would you know what I can decide and what not?"

'Oops. Guess that was a little to much. Damn now he is more on guard than before!'

"You don't need to worry about that. You also don't have much of a choice."

In the end he was freed. Despite everything that was said at the end we were notified of a meeting for negotiations a few days later, in appreciation of not killing Hack.

Long story short, in the end we would keep to certain conditions and regularly send reports about the weapon in exchange for ammo. All in all it is a cooperation I didn't expect to happen but it's Information for equipment that would strengthen my crew member to an extreme and help keep others safe when I am not around.

After everything we could finally leave the island the following week. Following the log pose for a few days everything went as well as it could go on the Grand Line until…

(AN: Hey! Sorry this might be a little short but I am currently cultivating the dao of cliff. Jokes aside! I might upload two chapters tomorrow depending on how many people come visit since the last two chapters were just around 1k words!)