"I'm relieved to hear that."
The moment Saint Charlos casually declared that Figarland Garling could take anything he wanted without ever needing to return it, the Supreme Commander of the God's Knights wasted no time.
His right hand closed around the hilt of his sword.
Clang——
A razor-sharp glint of steel flashed.
Sizzle.
Blood sprayed in a vivid arc from Saint Charlos's neck. The head, cleanly severed, tumbled through the air before striking the marble floor with a dull thud.
The decapitated head rolled several times and finally came to rest facing upward. Even in death, the Celestial Dragon's expression was a bizarre mixture of shock and lingering, almost childlike joy — as though he still believed this was all part of some amusing game.
Figarland Garling looked down at the head and spoke in a low murmur.
"I'll borrow your head. Just for a little while."
He flipped the sword with a casual backhand motion, flicking fresh blood from the blade.
"Although you did nothing wrong this time… you still have to die."
"Don't blame me."
His voice dropped even lower.
"It's all for the Celestial Dragons."
To personally execute a Celestial Dragon — of course it had to be him.
As the Supreme Commander of the God's Knights, apart from the Five Elders themselves, only Figarland Garling held the authority to judge and carry out the death sentence on a World Noble.
Clang!
The bloodstained blade slid back into its scabbard with a decisive snap.
Figarland Garling's expression turned icy.
Over the decades he had served, he had executed Celestial Dragons more than once. But every single time, without exception, the victim had violated the sacred laws and internal order of the World Nobles. They had committed some unforgivable transgression against their own kind.
This was the first time he had been ordered to behead one who was completely innocent.
For the man who stood at the absolute pinnacle of the God's Knights, this felt like an unprecedented humiliation burning in his chest.
Yet he had personally witnessed Rosen's terrifying power.
And this was Im's explicit will.
Even he had no choice but to obey.
He would carry out the execution himself. He would deliver the Celestial Dragon's head and corpse — use this death to placate Rosen and extinguish the fury of the strongest Marine in history.
"Come in."
Suppressing the shame and rage churning inside him, Figarland Garling spoke coldly into the empty air.
Click.
The massive doors immediately swung open.
Several divine guards entered in perfect silence, carrying an ornate black coffin between them.
They had clearly anticipated exactly what would happen here. When they saw Saint Charlos's headless body slumped in the chair, blood pooling across the holy marble and soaking into the carpet, not one of them showed the slightest trace of surprise or panic.
They simply held their breath, stepped forward with mechanical precision, and carefully lifted the head and torso, placing both inside the coffin.
"And the slave's corpse as well."
Figarland Garling's voice remained flat and emotionless.
"Send them both to the port at the foot of the Red Line."
"Hand them over to Rosen."
Being forced — by a Marine, no less — to personally behead a Celestial Dragon was an indelible stain on his pride. As Supreme Commander, the shame was almost unbearable.
Yet he could only swallow the fury and keep his tone cold and controlled.
Once Saint Charlos's remains were delivered to the base of the Red Line, Mary Geoise would be temporarily sealed.
Even he would be forbidden to leave without Im's direct permission.
All of this… because of one man.
Rosen.
"Yes, sir!"
The divine guards answered in low, cautious voices. They lifted the coffin with utmost care — as though the slightest jolt might provoke the man standing before them — and retreated from the chamber step by careful step, walking on eggshells.
Whether by coincidence or cruel irony, these were the very same guards who, not long ago, had carried out Saint Charlos's order to hurl Ginny and her daughter off the edge of the Red Line into the abyss of the Grand Line below.
…
…
Having left Pangaea Castle.
Having left Mary Geoise.
Rosen did not linger at the entrance to wait. Instead, he climbed back onto the Heavenly Staircase he had ascended earlier and began the long, slow descent toward the warship docked far below.
When he finally stepped onto the deck, he sank into a chair, leaned back, and half-closed his eyes.
His breathing gradually became shallow and even.
He looked almost as though he had fallen asleep.
Roughly half an hour passed.
Clang clang clang——
Thump.
The sound of heavy, armored footsteps approached from the distance, followed by the dull thud of something weighty being set down on the deck.
Two lines of divine guards in full ceremonial armor carried two coffins aboard and placed them side by side near the center of the deck.
Then, without uttering a single word, they turned and left.
Neither Gion nor Gild Tesoro spared the guards so much as a glance.
Especially Tesoro.
From the moment the coffins touched the deck, his gaze had locked onto them like iron to a magnet. Nothing else in the world existed.
"Go on, Tesoro."
At that moment, Rosen — eyes still closed — suddenly spoke.
"Yes."
Only then did Gild Tesoro snap out of the storm of emotions raging inside him.
He lifted one foot, then the other, walking toward the coffins with deliberate slowness. Every step was cautious, almost reverent, as though he feared the slightest noise might shatter everything.
His legs trembled faintly.
His hands shook.
He was terrified that this was only an illusion — that if he moved too quickly, the dream would collapse.
For years, the only place he had ever seen her again was in nightmares and drunken hallucinations.
Click.
Finally, trembling with a volatile mixture of dread, longing, excitement, and near-mad joy, Gild Tesoro reached the first coffin and lifted the lid.
Inside lay the frozen corpse of a woman.
Golden hair. A face pale as death.
She had been dead and preserved in ice for many years.
Yet what struck deepest was the expression still frozen on her face — a gentle, radiant smile.
Even in death.
Even after years of torment.
She had died still forcing herself to smile.
That smile was like a blade wrapped in Conqueror's Haki — it sliced straight through Gild Tesoro's heart.
That face.
That smile.
A hundred years from now, even if the oceans dried up and the mountains turned to dust, he would never forget it. The memory had already carved itself into his bones.
"Stella…"
"You're still exactly the same. Even when the pain was a hundred times worse for you than it ever was for me… you kept smiling."
"So you were just trying to tell me… that as long as I existed, you could still be happy?"
"Even after the Celestial Dragons bought you."
"Even after they tortured you."
"Even when I couldn't do anything to save you."
His legs finally gave out. The Golden Emperor — a man who controlled more than ten percent of the world's wealth — collapsed to his knees on the deck. His trembling hands reached toward her face, only to freeze mid-air, terrified that even the lightest touch might somehow damage her.
"I'm sorry, Stella."
"I've come for you."
"Please… forgive me."
"It's taken me until today… only today… to finally bring you back."
At last, he placed both hands on the thick layer of ice encasing her body.
Through the cold, ignoring the bite against his palms, he gently stroked her frozen cheek.
He should have been sobbing uncontrollably.
And indeed tears poured down his face — yet at the same time a trembling, incredulous smile curved his lips.
Gion watched the scene unfold and felt her own throat tighten.
"So that's what 'tears of extreme joy' really look like…"
She turned toward the man lounging in the chair.
"Rosen."
"You were right."
"This world really is sick. Seriously, incurably sick."
Rosen gave no reply. He kept his eyes closed, pretending to sleep.
But Gion knew better.
This man wasn't asleep.
He was deliberately refusing to look.
A person with Observation Haki at his level could peer straight into the hearts of others — could feel their emotions more clearly than anyone.
Right now, aside from Gild Tesoro himself, the person who best understood the agony and ecstasy tearing through the Golden Emperor… was Rosen.
"Soon," Rosen murmured, almost to himself. "This time we've forced the Five Elders to seal Mary Geoise and stop the Celestial Dragons from leaving. Next time…"
He deliberately refrained from extending his Observation Haki toward Tesoro.
But Tesoro's emotions were so violent — a raging tsunami — that they crashed against Rosen's senses anyway.
The sheer intensity was second only to what Tesoro himself felt.
That was why Rosen truly did not want to witness any more of this scene.
"He's completely forgotten the other coffin exists," Gion whispered.
Indeed, Gild Tesoro remained kneeling before Stella's body, murmuring to her frozen smile, oblivious to everything else — even to the second coffin sitting just a few meters away.
That one must contain the corpse of their mutual enemy: Saint Charlos.
Yet right now, in Tesoro's world, only Stella existed.
Nothing else could intrude.
Even the man who had destroyed his life and happiness lay nearby, and Tesoro had no attention to spare for vengeance.
Years had passed.
Life and death had separated them.
Yet he still had so much left to say to her.
"Celeestial Dragons… they all deserve to die."
Gion turned her face away. At the same time she raised a hand, silently ordering the surrounding Marines to tread lightly and keep their distance — so as not to disturb this long-overdue reunion.
Before today she had only heard rumors of the Celestial Dragons' depravity.
Now she had seen it with her own eyes.
And the hatred that rose in her chest was real, visceral, and cold.
"Rosen."
"There's another coffin?"
Gion walked over, half-crouched beside his chair, and leaned close to his ear, whispering.
"Just leave it."
"Tesoro will deal with it when he's ready."
"Let's set sail. I don't want to stay here a second longer."
Rosen didn't open his eyes.
But a voice — calm and unmistakable — echoed directly in Gion's mind.
"Yes."
She gave the smallest nod.
Even without relying on her own powerful Observation Haki, she could feel it clearly: the murderous intent Rosen was desperately suppressing beneath his calm exterior.
In Gild Tesoro's eyes, Rosen had already gone too far — personally escorting him to Mary Geoise, retrieving Stella's body, forcing the Five Elders to execute a Celestial Dragon — all actions that could seriously damage the Navy's future position.
He had no idea.
It was precisely because Rosen was thinking about the Navy's long-term future that he had limited himself to these demands:
Retrieve the body.
Execute Charlos.
Force Im to issue the lockdown order on Mary Geoise.
And nothing more.
Not yet.
Not a full-scale, desperate war.