"What... What did you just say?!"
The floor trembled as Fleet Admiral Sengoku brought his fist down with such force that the entire mahogany war table splintered beneath him, splitting into two jagged halves. Maps, den-den mushi, and encrypted intel files scattered in all directions like startled birds. The temperature in the room seemed to drop instantly.
The young marine officer standing before him nearly stumbled backward, his face pale and drenched in sweat. His trembling fingers still held the urgent dispatch that had just arrived via encrypted channel from the G-7 New World Surveillance Outpost.
"I-I... I'm sorry, Fleet Admiral," he stammered, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the polished stone floor. "B-but the intelligence is confirmed, sir. Gecko Moria has launched a full-scale assault on Kaido's fleet. The battle is underway near the waters south of Onigashima. Thriller Bark itself has appeared on the battlefield."
A long, brittle silence followed.
Sitting across the shattered table, Vice Admiral Tsuru remained unmoved. Her eyes were narrowed beneath her wrinkled brow, calm and calculating, though even she couldn't completely mask the slight twitch of annoyance that crossed her expression. Her hands, laced neatly over one another, rested beside a now-ruined stack of briefing folders.
"This is what happens when you try to play chess with wolves," she murmured, voice low but sharp as steel.
Sengoku rubbed his temple with both hands, a deep growl vibrating in his throat. A dull, pounding headache had already begun to bloom behind his eyes.
"Damn that bastard..."
He took a few steps away from the wreckage, fists clenched behind his back, facing the tall windows of the strategy chamber. Rain lashed against the glass, as though the storm outside mirrored the chaos that had erupted across the New World.
"I told them. I warned the entire Elder Council not to trust that lunatic. But no—they insisted. 'He was a Warlord once. He still commands fear. He could be... useful.'"
Sengoku spat the word like poison.
"And now, instead of assisting in stabilizing the New World, Moria's decided to dig up his corpse army and turn it against one of the strongest contenders who can challenge the current status quo... What the hell is wrong with these people?!"
He turned back toward the officer.
"Monitor the situation. I want real-time surveillance. Every crew's movement. Every single ship in and out of the surrounding waters—I need to know everything." Sengoku's voice was a low snarl now, the volcanic pressure in his chest threatening to erupt again. He took a sharp breath, trying to keep his composure.
"If Kaido gets bogged down fighting… then that cursed Doflamingo will move unchallenged. And the ripple that'll cause..."
He turned toward the panoramic war map now flickering with live markers, still not realizing the true seriousness of the matter he had casually spoken of, his mind racing for countermeasures.
"…It'll crack the entire operation we initiated to restore balance to the New World."
The room fell into a suffocating silence, only the mechanical hum of the transponder surveillance relays breaking the tension. Across the table, Vice Admiral Tsuru's eyes were half-lidded, her fingers steepled before her as she stared at the projections from the video den den mushi.
For years, she had watched monsters dance on the edge of the world government's order—but never had the board felt this volatile.
The young marine officer standing before them gulped hard. His hands trembled, clutching the half-finished intelligence report like it was a live fuse. He hadn't even delivered the entire report yet—and already the first half had sent the Fleet Admiral into a fury.
Now came the worst part. Tsuru's eyes suddenly narrowed. There was an edge of urgency to her voice now—a tremor of instinct forged in battlefields and covert ops that had outlasted generations.
"Do we have eyes," she asked coldly, "on the Donquixote force that was supposed to have left Dressrosa to intercept Kaido?"
The officer flinched, lips twitching. He didn't speak. He couldn't. Sengoku froze mid-step, a shiver running through his spine. The realization hit him like a cannonball.
In the chaos of Moria's betrayal, he'd overlooked the critical piece—the piece Doflamingo was counting on them to forget. If Kaido was distracted by Moria, then where the hell was Doflamingo?
He surged forward and gripped the officer by the shoulders, shaking him so hard the young man nearly dropped his report.
"Speak, Marine! Do we have anything on Doflamingo's current location? Last known heading? Cipher Pol intercepts? Smuggler routes? Even a whisper?!"
"F-Fleet Admiral," the officer stammered, "that's the... the second half of the report…"
Sengoku's jaw tightened.
"We've lost all contact with the scout vessels assigned to monitor the surrounding waters of Donquixote territory. Every last ship has gone dark. No signals. No debris. Not even a distress beacon."
Tsuru's face hardened, her hands now gripping the edge of the table.
"We've lost them?" she asked quietly.
The marine nodded, swallowing hard. "We're practically blind, Vice Admiral Tsuru. Even the ships monitoring Kaido's battle with Moria have started going silent. All the relay snails have gone dead. It's like someone… cut off their voices."
Sengoku took a step back, his breath catching in his throat. He hadn't felt this kind of sinking dread since the eve of Marineford.
"How long?" he asked.
"The last confirmed visual came from Cipher Pol—four days ago. It showed Doflamingo's flagship, the Anne's Grace, departing Dressrosa with a full escort. Since then… nothing."
Tsuru's chair creaked as she rose. Her eyes locked with Sengoku's. Her voice was laced with steel.
"Four days ago. That means he's had enough time to vanish into any corner of the New World."
Sengoku's hands dropped to his sides.
"Wait… wait. You're telling me only now that one of the main targets of the mission—no, an Emperor-level threat—has vanished from the board along with his entire executive force, and we've got no idea where he is?"
The marine nodded. "I… I'm afraid so, sir."
Silence gripped the war room. A deadly, paralyzing silence.
Tsuru exhaled sharply. "It's a ghost maneuver. Pulling the entire fleet under the radar. Not even the Revolutionary Army can pull this kind of vanishing act. Even the Cipher Pol can not do something like this within the New World; it's simply impossible, since nobody knows who could be watching in the New World seas…. Sengoku, he can be anywhere…!"
Sengoku's fists clenched so hard his knuckles cracked. His voice dropped to a growl.
"Damn that snake… He knew. He knew Moria would clash against Kaido. He knew we'd focus all our eyes on the main conflict."
He marched over to the war map. Markers showed a web of Marine outposts across the New World—newly raised fortresses of the massive stabilization operation they'd launched.
Four hundred thousand marines. Dozens of temporary bases. Scattered like lambs across the wolves' den.
"He could strike any of them."
Tsuru nodded gravely. "If I were him, I wouldn't go after Kaido at all. I'd hit the rear. Slice the backbone of the Marine line while our eyes are on the dragon."
"Garp is deployed near the G-1 Outpost," Sengoku muttered. "But he's pinned close to Scarlett's waters. If Doflamingo makes landfall anywhere else... he could cut through the outposts like blades through rice paper."
Tsuru stepped to the display console and pulled up a surveillance feed—several marine bases flickering with activity.
"He's not just dangerous because of strength," she said. "It's his warfare doctrine. Cold. Strategic. Unpredictable. He blends nobility, piracy, and manipulation into one figure. No loyalty. No ideology. He doesn't want control. He wants chaos."
Sengoku stared at the flickering red markers now blinking into static.
"No wonder the Celestial Dragons feared him. He's what happens when you give a monster a throne."
Another thunderclap tore through the sky, rattling the glass panes of Marineford's command tower like a prelude to war. Inside the war room, tensions that were already coiled to their breaking point snapped taut as the door burst open once more.
A lieutenant, soaked in sweat and urgency, stormed into the room, clutching a folder marked with the Marine Intelligence Department's highly classified seal.
"Urgent report from Sector Outpost G-13, sir!" he shouted. "It's… it's Kaido—'Hundred Beasts' Kaido has launched an attack on the outpost!"
The war room fell into stunned silence. The words seemed to ricochet off the walls like a cannon blast, dislodging the already fragile calm.
"The entire patrol fleet guarding the temporary outpost has been annihilated. The last recorded signal indicated a massive aerial assault—then complete radio silence. The outpost has gone dark."
Sengoku's jaw clenched. He turned—first to the young officer who had moments ago informed them of Kaido clashing with Moria, and then back to this new messenger. His eyes burned with disbelief and barely restrained fury.
"What the hell are you two saying…?" he growled. "Don't tell me that bastard Kaido has split in half and is fighting on two battlefields at once."
The junior officer stammered, his face pale, eyes darting like he expected the Fleet Admiral to reach across the table and strangle him.
"This has to be a mistake," Sengoku muttered, storming toward the map. "Moria was confirmed to have engaged Kaido near the Bone Drift Shoals—and now we're getting reports of Kaido razing G-13 outpost?"
He slammed a red tactical pin into the map at G-13's location. "That's nearly four thousand nautical miles apart—no one other than Borsalino with his light abilities can traverse that distance; not even Kaido in dragon form could cover that distance in under a few hours."
He turned sharply toward the lieutenant, his voice like the crack of a whip.
"Are you absolutely certain about this intel?"
The young man didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stepped forward and gently placed a small decoder transponder snail onto the briefing table.
"Sir… before G-13 went dark, they managed to transmit a partial video feed through a damaged Den Den Mushi. We recovered what we could."
He twisted the dial, and the transponder snail's eyes opened, projecting a grainy, flickering image into the room. Everyone leaned forward. The war room fell into dead silence as they watched.
Through the static-filled haze of the projection, the feed showed a high-angle shot from a tower at G-13—overlooking the ocean.
What was once a calm seascape had become a maelstrom of destruction. Jagged waves towered as if dragged by an unnatural force. In the middle of the storm—a massive serpentine silhouette, wreathed in Crimson flame and black lightning, pierced the clouds like a god descending from the heavens.
Gasps filled the room.
"Impossible…" Tsuru whispered.
Kaido. That was definitely Kaido's mythical zoan form, though the image wasn't clear enough; what they saw was enough to confirm the mythical Azure Dragon form.
The projection glitched, skipped several frames, then cut to another scene—panic inside the outpost. Marines scrambling, gunfire, the scream of sirens. Then— a deafening roar that made the transponder snail recoil in fear. Even distorted, the sound was unmistakable.
Then, the screen went dark. Silence returned to the room. But this time, it was heavier. It pressed down on the spine, thick with dread.
Sengoku stood motionless. The veins in his temples twitched. "That's… That was him. That was Kaido."
"But that's not possible…" Tsuru murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. Her voice, calm yet ice-edged, barely rose above the quiet hum of the command center. "If Kaido is battling Moria near Bone Drift… then what did we just witness?"
The question lingered like a curse. No one spoke. The possibility crept into the war room like a noxious fog—too absurd to voice, too plausible to ignore.
"Could it be… an illusion?" one officer whispered, as if afraid to awaken the truth.
Sengoku's gaze hardened. His voice dropped to a growl.
"No."
He stepped closer to the screen, watching the frozen image of the colossal draconic silhouette over the smoldering remains of G-13. Even distorted by static and chaos, it was unmistakable.
"That was real. The destruction… the roar… the breath attack—and that silhouette… every detail matches. Too precise. Too authentic. That wasn't a trick. That was Kaido."
Tsuru's eyes narrowed, her sharp mind already connecting threads most others hadn't even seen. She exhaled, slow and measured.
"Then we may be facing a threat far greater than we ever anticipated."
She reached over and tapped the data display, calling up dossiers and intel clusters.
"We've long suspected Kaido's ambitions, but we took a calculated risk. We banked on his hatred for the Donquixote brothers—that rivalry is what we leveraged. That's why we encouraged Kaido to engage Doflamingo while we focused our resources elsewhere."
She paused, her expression darkening.
"But what if…"
Sengoku's eyes widened as realization struck. He finished her thought:
"What if they've joined hands?"
The room fell into stunned silence. A dread-slick hush settled over the officers like the weight of the sea before a tsunami. A coalition.
Kaido and Doflamingo—two monsters, once enemies, now aligned. The implications were earth-shattering. It would mean the entire chessboard had just been flipped. One force razing Marine outposts. The other, completely off the radar. Invisible. Silent. Deadly. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
"Damn it!" Sengoku exploded, the fury erupting from him like cannon fire. He slammed his fist into the war table, splintering the reinforced steel frame. "We've been outplayed. Doflamingo used Moria as bait—to make us believe Kaido was locked in a prolonged war. We bought the lie. And now... we're surrounded."
He turned sharply to the communications chief.
"Pull back the recon patrols near G-13—all of them! Activate Red Alert Protocol. Launch every ready vessel for emergency extraction. I want all Marine forces deployed in the New World back on their ships, effective immediately!"
He marched toward the central command snail.
"Temporarily abandon all forward outposts—every G-base except G-1. Issue a convergence directive. All surviving forces are to regroup there, and only there."
He slammed his palm down on the snail's call receiver.
"Alert every G-base under silent protocol. If Kaido appears—they do not engage. They run. Regroup. Report."
His voice dropped an octave, dark and grim.
"Engaging him now is suicide."
Tsuru's expression was carved in stone.
"And now, with Kaido free to move at will… and possibly bringing his entire fleet to bear—we're no longer dealing with isolated incidents. We're facing coordinated warfare."
She looked to the tactical board: dozens of Marine strongholds marked in white, scattered across the crimson expanse of the New World. They floated like chess pieces on a blood-soaked sea.
Outposts, now vulnerable.
Too many. Spread too thin. And the most dangerous player hadn't even made his move.
Just then, the command room doors burst open once more. Another officer charged in, his uniform drenched from the storm outside, eyes wide with alarm. In his hands—a fresh folder bearing the seal of Emergency Priority One. He didn't wait for permission.
"Fleet Admiral—Sir—G-14 outpost just issued a mayday call. Multiple hostile galleons are approaching at high speed. Their flags… they bear the Jolly Roger of the Donquixote Pirates."
Gasps erupted from the gathered officers.
Sengoku's eyes went wide. "He's moving."
The room fell still.
Tsuru slowly sat back in her chair as the worst-case scenario just settled in. "Doflamingo is on the hunt."
Lightning forked across the storm-tossed skies outside. Thunder followed like a war drum roll. The final truth, horrible and absolute, settled like an anchor over every heart in the room:
The Joker and the Beast were no longer enemies. They were allies.
And the Marines—caught dead center like sitting ducks—were now facing a war they had no plan for.
Somewhere in the shadows of the New World, Doflamingo smiled behind his signature shades—because the first move had been made, and he held the board.
****
Ryugu Palace, Fishmen Island
"Ptui! We should've just torn him apart limb from limb," Smoker grumbled, spitting over the edge of the coral balcony. His usual stoic composure cracked with frustration, the flickering bioluminescence of the sea creatures reflecting off his cigarette ash. "I still can't believe we let that fish-faced bastard walk away alive…"
It had been nearly a week since Arlong and his band of rogue Fishman supremacists launched a surprise assault on them beneath the towering kelp canopies of the Sea Forest. But what Arlong hadn't counted on was that these weren't helpless children or weak surface dwellers. These were Doflamingo's children—and they were anything but defenseless.
Smoker and Gladius had unleashed hell.
Before Queen Otohime's tearful pleas could echo through the coral caverns, three-quarters of Arlong's crew had been torn apart, crushed, or buried beneath stone and flame. The fight had lasted minutes. The butchery… seconds.
If not for Queen Otohime personally falling to her knees, begging Robin to stop her siblings, Arlong's blood would have stained the seabed forever. Robin, moved by the Queen's sincerity and sorrow—not for her enemies, but for the fragile peace she desperately tried to preserve—had gently placed her hand on Smoker's shoulder and whispered, "That's enough."
Even so, Arlong hadn't escaped unscathed. He and the few that still clung to life were now rotting in Ryugu's royal dungeon, at the behest of the Minister. For them to assault royal guests was not only a crime—it was a blatant insult to the Donquixote name.
Sitting cross-legged on a plush anemone cushion, little Reiju crossed her arms and pouted.
"Yeah! Brother Smokey's right! We should've at least ripped off both his arms for daring to target you, Robin-nee!"
Her voice cracked with outrage, but she restrained herself—because it had been Robin who chose mercy. And if Robin chose to forgive, then Reiju, however grudgingly, would respect that.
At the round coral table nearby, Shyarly idly shuffled her poker chips. She didn't bother looking at her cards. With her clairvoyant gifts, everyone else's hands might as well have been face-up.
"Robin made the right call," Shyarly said, not looking up. Her voice was calm but clear, floating across the room like a ripple on still water. "Remember why Master Doffy sent us here. We're not here to break things—we're here to build. An unshakable alliance. The more benevolent we appear, the more pressure it puts on them. The more they owe us."
Robin gently closed the ancient tome she'd been reading from the Royal Library and glanced up with a soft smile. In her eyes, wisdom met weariness—so much darkness had passed through her life, yet she still chose restraint when it mattered.
Shyarly continued, almost as an afterthought. "And… the real reason why she stayed her hand is because Arlong is my half-brother."
Silence. A sharp crack followed as Smoker's cigarette dropped from his lips, hitting the floor with a faint sizzle. His cards were forgotten entirely.
"He's your what?" he blurted, gaping. "Your brother?! Why the hell didn't you tell us?! I almost killed that shark-faced lunatic!"
Then, as the realization settled in, he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, wincing. "Shit—sorry, I mean, I didn't know—"
Shyarly laughed softly, a rare sound like waves brushing moonlit shores. "Relax, Smokey. I don't care. Blood doesn't make everyone family. Not anymore."
She looked around the room—the soft lighting flickering against the elegant coral walls, her siblings spread across the space like a mismatched band of misfits and monsters who'd somehow become everything to her. This was her family. Not the past. Not Arlong.
"Back there in the Sea Forest…" she added, "he recognized me. He knew who I was. And he still attacked. Still tried to hurt all of you. That's all I needed to know."
Her gaze turned distant, her voice edged with prophecy.
"He's not yours to kill, Smoker. His end is already written. He'll die far from home. Alone. Like a coward. And no one will remember his name."
With that, she slid all her chips forward.
"All in."
Smoker blinked. "Eh? Hey now, I had this round in the bag—wait, wait, how the hell did you beat me again?! I had a straight flush! Where's the justice in this!?"
Reiju giggled behind her cards. "She's cheating, dummy. Like, literally cheating. She sees the future."
"I call it strategic foresight," Shyarly said sweetly, fanning herself with the hand she just used to take Smoker's last allowance.
"Noooooo… My Fishman Island specialties… my souvenirs… my emergency cigars… gone!" Smoker howled in mock agony, slumping against the table. "Robin, Sugar, help me, I'm poor now!"
Monet was already scribbling notes into her ever-growing ledger. "According to the terms of the sibling gambling agreement, any debts accrued during family-assigned operations are non-refundable."
Smoker paled. "No… not the ledger…"
Robin chuckled quietly, returning to her book. In that moment—amid the teasing, the laughter, and the ridiculousness of lost allowances—something unspoken was reaffirmed: They were more than a squad.
They were a family. Forged not by blood, but by survival. By trust. By the bond of those who had chosen one another despite the odds.