Regardless of the outcome of this graduation assessment, the recruits were exhausted.
Zephyr dismissed them to rest. Once the last of them had left, the smile on his face vanished instantly, replaced by a storm-dark expression. Without a word, he strode toward the main Marine Headquarters building.
Along the way, soldiers greeted him with their usual cheerful respect.
But today, Marine Admiral Zephyr did not return their smiles.
The aura around him was terrifying.
After he passed, whispers spread.
What could possibly have happened to make "Teacher Zephyr" — one of the kindest men in Marine Headquarters — this furious?
They didn't know.
But someone would soon find out.
"Alright. I understand."
Fleet Admiral Sengoku hung up the Den Den Mushi and rubbed his temples with a pained expression.
"Damn it… tossing me a problem like that with one sentence. Do they think I'm some kind of Aladdin's lamp?"
He muttered irritably.
He casually handed the intelligence report in front of him to the small goat at his feet. He had brought the animal back not long ago — it was surprisingly perceptive.
The goat's eyes lit up.
It opened its mouth and ate the document.
"Shiki the Golden Lion is expanding territory again. Whitebeard's crew has gained several powerful new fighters. Charlotte Linlin has seized another kingdom. That brat Kaido is flooding the underworld with weapons. And Roger has disappeared…"
Sengoku sighed.
"These are troubled times."
Nothing escaped his notice.
As the Marines' great strategist, he had long recognized the shifting balance of the seas. But what could he actually do?
He had proposed countless measures, all to no avail.
Then the World Government handed him a six-month deadline — suppress pirate growth, no matter what.
Suppress piracy?
He had the simplest solution of all.
If the World Government would just reduce the Heavenly Tribute by ten percent, piracy across the seas would drop by at least thirty percent.
But could he say that aloud?
Those greedy Celestial Dragons raised the Heavenly Tribute every year. Many kingdoms could no longer endure the crushing cost and had been destroyed by pirates.
And where did those pirates come from?
From citizens who worked themselves to exhaustion in their kingdoms yet still couldn't survive — so they took to the seas for a chance at life.
The Celestial Dragons, who made up less than a fraction of the world's population, spent astronomical amounts of Berries each year. If that wealth were distributed among the common people, it could feed tens of millions.
Sengoku grumbled under his breath a while longer before brewing himself a cup of tea.
He sipped leisurely while processing paperwork—
When suddenly, the two guards outside the Fleet Admiral's office shouted in alarm.
Before he could even swallow—
BOOM.
The office door wasn't kicked open.
It was kicked off its hinges and sent flying, shattering the glass behind it and crashing far away.
"Cough—!"
Sengoku nearly choked to death on his own tea, almost becoming the first Fleet Admiral in history to die from self-inflicted tea inhalation.
After several violent coughs, he looked up in fury—
And froze.
Behind his round glasses, his eyes instinctively shifted aside.
He didn't dare meet that gaze.
That reaction confirmed Zephyr's suspicions.
He strode forward, grabbed the edge of Sengoku's desk—
And flipped it.
Documents scattered everywhere. Scalding tea spilled across Sengoku's trousers.
For a moment, Sengoku was stunned.
Anger surged within him—
But before he could roar, Zephyr seized him by the collar and dragged him forward.
"Sengoku."
"Look at me and answer."
"Were you aware?"
Zephyr didn't specify which incident.
He didn't need to.
Sengoku knew.
The anger he had felt vanished instantly.
His presence faltered beneath Zephyr's.
As Fleet Admiral, even though the incident had occurred deep at night with few witnesses, he knew everything.
He also knew of the inexplicable orders issued by the World Government.
With his keen intellect, he had pieced together the truth.
But those were direct orders from the World Government.
And as Fleet Admiral, he could not defy them.
All he could do was move pieces in the shadows.
Roldy's underworld intelligence network was formidable — but without certain deliberate "leaks" from the Fleet Admiral himself, how could underground brokers have known so much?
Yet none of that could be said.
Even if spoken, it would change nothing.
He understood deeply what his old friend had suffered.
Perhaps everything he had done was merely to soothe his own conscience.
But under Zephyr's bloodshot eyes—
All justification dissolved.
That day, Marine Headquarters' Fleet Admiral office received a full renovation.
When soldiers later came to report, they were shocked.
The usually dignified and imposing Fleet Admiral was bruised and swollen — nearly unrecognizable.
The new recruits graduated and were dispatched across the world.
Marine Headquarters continued operating like the massive machine it had always been.
But observant individuals noticed—
Marine Admiral Zephyr had not appeared in public for a long time.
Time marched on.
After escorting Zephyr safely back to Marine Headquarters, Roldy reunited with his subordinates and resumed the hunt for Gol D. Roger.
Roger was nowhere to be found.
No one knew where that bastard had vanished.
Instead, Roldy encountered Vice Admiral Garp.
Their meeting did not erupt into a catastrophic clash.
Rather—
Roldy attended alone and, through extremely "despicable" means, destroyed all the supplies aboard Garp's warship.
With Roger missing and endless drifting across the seas proving fruitless, Roldy discussed matters with his deputy, Sheen.
It was time to establish a base of operations.
No matter the power, every force required a foundation to grow.
After surveying numerous islands, Roldy selected a place in the New World known as the Kingdom of Tia.
It was located near the Sabaody Archipelago, within the first half of the New World.
Roldy led his forces there in grand formation.
However—
It seemed someone else in the New World had set their sights on the same territory.
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