The Marine Headquarters' medical ward had never been this loud.
The sterile white walls and serious-faced doctors usually forced even hardened Vice Admirals to keep their voices down, but today, that discipline had vanished.
"I said I'm fine."
"You are not fine!" Nami yelled, standing beside the hospital bed with her hands on her hips.
Her orange hair was tangled from the sea wind, and while her eyes were red, her glare was sharp enough to force several nurses to back away.
Zaraki sat shirtless on the bed, wrapped in bandages across his chest, shoulder, and blistered hand.
His body bore the map of his recent chaos: old cuts from Shiki, lightning burns from Enel, and fresh scorch marks from Akainu.
Yet he looked infinitely more annoyed by the gauze than the actual injuries.
"It's just a burn."
Nami's smile turned demonic. "Just a burn?"
Carina leaned against the wall and immediately looked the other way to avoid the crossfire.
Sanji lit a cigarette, caught a nurse's deadly glare, and put it right back out.
Standing near the window with crossed arms, Zoro stared at the bandaged swordsman.
"You fought the Golden Lion, a lightning Logia, and an Admiral in one trip. And you're still alive?"
Zaraki grinned. "Jealous?"
Zoro's eyebrow twitched. "Don't die before I beat you."
"Then train harder."
Nami grabbed a pillow and smashed it into Zaraki's face. "Stop encouraging him!"
At the door, Garp laughed hard enough to draw the nurses' ire as well.
"Bwahahaha! What a lively crew!"
Standing beside the old hero, Sengoku looked as if he had aged another ten years.
"They are not crew members! They are witnesses under temporary Marine supervision."
Carina raised a hand. "Does temporary supervision include meals?"
Sanji stepped forward. "If there's a kitchen, I can cook for Nami-san and Carina-chan."
Sengoku rubbed his temples. "This is Marine Headquarters, not a restaurant!"
Zaraki ignored the Fleet Admiral and looked at Garp. "Old man, I want meat."
Garp nodded in solemn agreement. "Meat is critical for recovery."
Sengoku turned slowly to glare at his oldest friend. "Garp. If you raid the office cafeteria again, I will throw you into the sea."
As Garp's laughter boomed again, the door opened to reveal Vice Admiral Tsuru carrying a stack of documents.
The room quieted down, and even Zaraki stopped tearing at his bandages.
"Zaraki," Tsuru said, holding his gaze. "Your temporary classification has been decided."
Sengoku's expression hardened into his Fleet Admiral persona.
"Golden Lion Shiki is classified as missing after combat. Confirmation teams are currently sweeping the projected crash zone, but until a body or living trace is recovered, his death will not be officially announced."
Zaraki yawned. "Sounds troublesome."
"It is troublesome because you made it troublesome!" Sengoku snapped.
Tsuru continued as if the interruption hadn't happened. "Your battle record will be sealed at the highest level. Publicly, Marine Headquarters will announce only that the Golden Lion attacked Loguetown and was repelled by Marine forces."
Nami narrowed her eyes. "So you're hiding him?"
"We are protecting him," Tsuru corrected. "And protecting the Marines."
Zoro smirked at Zaraki. "You're already this much trouble?"
"Apparently."
Sengoku took the documents from Tsuru and stared down at the young man on the bed.
"Until the inquiry concludes, you are not an Admiral, you are not a Candidate, and you are not even formally enlisted."
Zaraki blinked. "That sounds great."
A vein pulsed on Sengoku's forehead. "However, due to your strength, your connection to Garp, your role in this incident, and your potential value to Headquarters, you are being placed under a special provisional status." He read the bold print aloud.
"Provisional Headquarters Combat Trainee. Restricted Special Observation Rank."
Carina tilted her head. "That sounds like a fancy way of saying 'prisoner'."
"It means," Tsuru clarified, "that he is too valuable to ignore, too dangerous to leave alone, and too undisciplined to promote."
Zaraki let out a rough laugh. "That one sounds accurate."
Sengoku read the rest of the terms through gritted teeth. "You will recover in Marineford. You will submit a full report. You will undergo an evaluation by Zephyr. You will not leave Headquarters without permission!"
Zaraki's smile faded into a scowl. "Sounds boring."
"And," Sengoku added with a sharp glare, "if you try to sneak out, Garp's allowance will be cut."
Garp froze.
Zaraki turned his head to look at the old hero, finding the man's expression deathly serious.
Garp stepped forward and placed both hands heavy on Zaraki's shoulders.
"Brat. You must endure!"
Nami stared in disbelief. "That's what convinced you?!"
"Rice crackers are a serious matter," Garp said with a firm nod.
The suffocating tension finally broke, and even Tsuru's mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile.
Outside the window, news birds circled the skies above Marineford, carrying a story that was missing all the vital pieces.
For now, the world only knew one thing: the Golden Lion had reappeared, and Marine Headquarters was hiding something massive.
...
Meanwhile, in the New World, the Moby Dick broke through the wind and waves.
The giant whale-headed ship smelled of rum, roasted meat, and sea salt, and to the pirates aboard, the politics of Marine Headquarters were as distant as the horizon.
"Pops! If you keep drinking, the ship doctor is going to yell at you again!" Marco sighed, his signature pineapple-shaped hair swaying in the sea breeze as he stared helplessly at the towering captain pouring a massive bowl of medicinal wine down his throat.
"Gurararara! Noisy brat! Alcohol is the king of all medicine!" Edward Newgate wiped his mouth, his crescent mustache framing eyes that still held the sharp, undeniable light of an overlord of the sea.
"More importantly, where is today's newspaper? I'm waiting to see that old bastard Sengoku make a fool of himself."
A news bird shrieked overhead, dropping a rolled-up paper that still carried the scent of fresh ink.
Marco caught it out of the air and opened it with a bored sigh.
"It's probably just some branch promotion or a standard pirate capture report. After all, at a time like this..."
His voice cut off.
The perpetual, lazy smile on the First Commander's face froze the second his eyes hit the front page.
The headline was cautious and the wording vague, with key details clearly suppressed by Headquarters.
But the photograph—a grainy, aerial shot of the Golden Lion's legendary floating islands crashing into the ocean as ruined rubble—was more than enough to tell the real story.
---------
Read 30 chapters ahead and support me on patreon.
patreon (.)com/Newbietranslator