Marineford, Grand Line
The air inside the Fleet Admiral's private chamber was tense and heavy. Though this was not an official assembly, every seat—makeshift or otherwise—was occupied by some of the strongest military powers the Marines currently possessed.
The mood was far from formal; shoulders were relaxed, coats were hung on chairs or slung over arms, and yet the gravity of their gathering weighed more than any ceremonial formality ever could.
Seated at the head of the room behind his desk was Fleet Admiral Sengoku, face calm but eyes sharp beneath his distinctive cap. The golden marine insignia on his cloak gleamed under the room's dim lighting, a silent reminder of his authority.
Opposite to him on the left sat Vice Admiral Tsuru, stoic as ever, flipping through classified dossiers. Across the room, three Admirals—Sakazuki, Ginshimo, and the recently recalled Raylene—sat or leaned wherever they could, each exuding power like unsheathed weapons.
Except for the marine hero Garp, who was absent today, almost all the top combatants were present in this small gathering, making this a rare moment where the entire high command, current and future, had assembled without pretense.
The silence was broken not by Sengoku, but by Vice Admiral Kuzan, his voice colder than the Devil Fruit he wielded.
"So are we just going to pretend like Icarus Kingdom didn't happen?"
His words were sharp, laced with restrained fury.
"Sengoku-san... you once promised us that nothing like Flevance would ever repeat itself while the Marines stood watch. But here we are again—an entire kingdom decimated. An entire royal bloodline erased. Thousands of innocents slaughtered. And we... just stood there. Like glorified bodyguards."
The room didn't flinch, but the weight of his words was undeniable. A thick ember glowed in the corner of the room as Sakazuki, Admiral Akainu, drew from a fresh cigar. Smoke curled from his mouth as he exhaled, the scar that ran from his temple down his collarbone catching the dim light—a permanent memento of past failures and harder lessons.
"Tch... if you ask me, good riddance," he muttered, voice gravelly.
"There was ample evidence the Icarus monarchy was colluding with pirates. We should've purged them ourselves before it escalated."
His words were iron, but not without scars of their own. Even Sakazuki, unflinching champion of Absolute Justice, bore the weight of what he'd seen lately—of what even he couldn't control.
Before Sengoku could speak, Kizaru, usually the most indifferent among them, suddenly raised his voice—a rare crack in his lazy demeanor.
"Then why didn't we act earlier, huh?! Why let it all fall to ruin before lifting a finger?"
"A hundred and sixty thousand people, Sengoku-san. Dead. We waited for permission while a kingdom burned. Innocents died because we were told to 'stand by'—like dogs waiting on scraps from Cipher Pol."
The words echoed off the polished walls, and for a brief moment, the Fleet Admiral's office felt more like a war council before a coup.
"Kizaru, calm yourself."
Vice Admiral Tsuru finally broke her silence, her voice calm but edged with the weight of decades of wisdom. She closed the folder in her hands with a soft snap, the gesture more final than a gavel strike.
"You of all people should understand that Sengoku's hands were tied. The operation was under direct World Government jurisdiction, with Cipher Pol running point. Orders were clear—we do not engage unless given clearance."
Her old eyes, shrewd and calculating, shifted to Kuzan now.
"Do you even realize what the alternative was, Kuzan?" Tsuru's voice was low, but it cut through the room like a blade.
"Do you truly believe you—and the rest of the vice admirals—were deployed with a full fleet just to establish a sea blockade?" Her tone tightened, deliberate and cold.
"To respond to a ragtag group of pirates led by a no-name captain whose bounty hadn't even broken a hundred million berries?"
She let the question hang in the air, like a noose waiting to be pulled.
"You were sent there, all of you, not to fight—but to stand witness. To be the sword the moment Cipher Pol failed. That wasn't a deployment, Kuzan. That was a loaded gun pointed at an entire kingdom, waiting for someone to pull the trigger."
"If Cipher Pol hadn't achieved their objective, the World Government would've initiated a Buster Call on Icarus."
The room went still.
"Yes," she continued. "A full-scale, all-out annihilation. Not just the hundred and sixty thousand who would have lost their lives. But all of them. Every man, woman, and child—gone. And it would've been us marines who pulled the trigger."
The silence that followed was deafening. Kuzan's jaw tightened, his breath visible in the room's growing chill. Even Raylene, who normally followed in Garp's footsteps by throwing out impromptu comments, had nothing to add now, and Akainu's cigar had burned low in his hand.
Tsuru opened the file again and dropped it onto Sengoku's desk. The top page showed a photo—grainy, black and white, but unmistakable. The Icarus royal family, chained and bloodied. A red "X" across each face. Labeled: Traitors. Executed. And a new monarchy had already taken power over the Icarus kingdom.
"Whatever the monarchy of Icarus did—or didn't do—we'll never know," Tsuru murmured. "The story was buried before we arrived. All we're left with are numbers and silence."
Sengoku finally leaned forward, fingers steepled, his expression unreadable beneath the brim of his cap.
"You think I liked watching this unfold?" he said, voice like distant thunder.
"Do you think I enjoy being told by those in the Holy Land that my authority means nothing when an entire nation's security was at stake?"
The air in the room had turned leaden. All eyes were on Kuzan, but the Vice Admiral remained silent—his jaw clenched, gaze averted. Sengoku waited, the silence stretching like a taut wire ready to snap. But the answer never came.
Instead, a sound broke the tension like a slap across the face.
"Slurp..."
It came from the far end of the room, where a small teapoy sat by the window. There, lounging as if in a teahouse and not the command chamber of the Marine Headquarters, was Vice Admiral Borsalino—Kizaru.
Temporarily relieved of his duties in the Scientific Division, replaced by Vice Admiral Vergo, Borsalino had returned to HQ solely to clock in before the start of his long-awaited vacation. And judging by his unbothered demeanor, he had mentally checked out already.
He took another exaggerated sip of tea, gold-framed sunglasses catching the afternoon light, his legs crossed leisurely as if nothing in the world could stir him.
"Borsalino...!" Sengoku's voice thundered across the chamber, filled with frustration.
"Do you have something to add, or are you just here to enjoy the refreshments?"
Borsalino slowly turned his head toward the Fleet Admiral's desk. Raising both hands in mock surrender, he replied with that maddeningly calm drawl:
"Ohh, don't mind me, Sengoku-san... I'm simply enjoying my well-deserved break. Wouldn't want to interrupt such passionate discourse."
If the couch hadn't already been occupied, he would likely have stretched out for a nap then and there.
Admiral Raylene couldn't help but chuckle at his audacity, even as the air grew heavier with Sengoku's fury. Kizaru was a future pillar of the Marines, a walking force of nature—and yet, here he was, treating the entire meeting like an afternoon stroll.
"You..." Sengoku started, rising from his chair, ready to stride across the room and throttle the laid-back vice admiral— But before he could take a step, a calm, steady voice cut through the rising heat of his anger.
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku," came the gravelly voice of Admiral Ginshimo, his tone weathered with age and experience. "The tragedy of the Icarus Kingdom is... lamentable. But no matter how much we debate it here, the dead will not rise. We do not have the luxury of drowning in guilt or fury. There are worse storms gathering beyond our shores."
Ginshimo was the embodiment of measured strength—of wisdom earned through failure. Unlike the brashness of Akainu or the detachment of Kizaru, Ginshimo was steadfast and had grown only sharper since his defeat at Sabaody more than a year ago.
Where once he had swung a sword like someone who had reached an absolute ceiling, now he moved with the grace of someone who had transcended into the next stage of swordsmanship—a dream he'd chased for decades and finally attained in silence.
Sengoku paused, the breath caught in his chest slowly exhaled. The heat behind his eyes began to fade. He looked across the room—not at the clutter of files, not at the reports detailing yet another kingdom burned to ash at the world government's order—but at the people gathered.
At least Tsuru and Ginshimo were here—officers who acted according to their station, not afraid to bear the burden of leadership. He knew that without them, the weight of running a massive organisation like the Marines would have already left him bald, broken, or both.
And for once, he was thankful that Garp wasn't in the room. That old fool would have only added fuel to the fire—or worse, laughed through it all. Sengoku sighed and lowered himself back into his seat.
"Enough," he muttered, rubbing his temples. "We'll file the report on Icarus as concluded. But from this moment forward, I want full surveillance on every Cipher Pol mission that overlaps with Marine jurisdiction. No more surprises."
"Knock... knock..."
Just as Fleet Admiral Sengoku opened his mouth to move on to the next matter, a sharp series of urgent knocks cut through the tension in the room. Without waiting for permission, the door burst open.
A Rear Admiral from Marine HQ's Intelligence Division stepped inside, breathing hard, a single sheet of paper clutched in his trembling hand like a cursed message. He didn't bother with formalities—he couldn't. The urgency was written across his face.
"Fleet Admiral," he said, voice taut, "we've just received high-priority intel from the New World—one of our scout ships patrolling Whitebeard territory near Sphinx Island has confirmed visual contact with the Leviathan, one of the Donquixote Family's flagships. It's en route to Sphinx."
The air seemed to be sucked from the room. Even the ever-unfazed Borsalino sat upright, his sunglasses catching the dim light as he turned his head toward the Rear Admiral. The lazy mask was gone. This wasn't routine anymore.
Tsuru reacted first, her mind slicing through the implications with the precision of a scalpel.
"Is the transponder snail still connected to the ship? Can we get live confirmation?"
The Rear Admiral hesitated, his lips tightening. Wordlessly, he placed the transponder snail on the table.
Static. Crackling white noise filled the Fleet Admiral's office, and the absence of a voice was louder than a scream. Sengoku's expression darkened.
"Did the ship come under attack while transmitting?" he asked, voice low and grim.
Everyone knew the cost of surveillance this deep into Yonko territory. If the scout vessel had been discovered, the outcome was always the same—obliteration. But understanding that didn't make the silence easier to bear.
"What was their final message?" Sengoku asked again, his eyes closing—perhaps a silent prayer for the souls now lost to the depths. The Rear Admiral's jaw clenched as he recalled it.
"The last transmission was the identity of the attacker... It was Marco the Phoenix—Whitebeard's First Division Commander. He was confirmed to be traveling aboard the Leviathan alongside the Donquixote Pirates."
"Tch... Bloody pirates!" Akainu snarled, his cigar falling to the floor in his anger.
Kuzan stepped forward wordlessly and crushed the ember beneath his boot, a subtle show of disapproval or silent mourning—it was hard to tell with him.
"Do we know who's captaining the Leviathan?" Admiral Raylene asked sharply, breaking through the static and the rising weight of the moment. "If the Donquixote Family is reaching out to Whitebeard himself, this could be a precursor to another alliance—another war. The last time those two monsters moved together, we were pushed out of the New World entirely."
The room seemed to brace itself for whatever name might come next. And then, the Rear Admiral spoke—and the temperature dropped.
"We believe... the one leading the Donquixote crew is Donquixote Rosinante himself."
Silence fell—true silence. The kind that screamed. It was as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Sengoku stood frozen. For a heartbeat, the veteran warrior—the man who had carried the Marines through an age of monsters—looked staggered. Not by a blow. But by a name. A name he had hoped—prayed—never to hear again.
"Rosinante...?" he repeated, almost choking on it. "Are you certain...? Has the intel been verified?"
His voice trembled at the edges—not from fear, but something heavier. Grief. Disbelief. Tsuru's eyes narrowed, her hand tightening around the armrest of her chair. She had read the reports.
She had seen the aftermath. The incident at Sabaody… the slaughter of nearly a dozen Celestial Dragons—erased from the records, buried in silence by the World Government. And then… the cataclysm that followed. A pit so large that it remained as a scar on the world, like an endless abyss that had devoured a part of the sea.
The apocalyptic clash between Rosinante and Monkey D. Garp. A battle that raged for days, scarring entire islands and shattering the skies.
And Garp had walked away victorious—barely. No one had heard from Rosinante since. No body had been found, no transmissions intercepted, no sightings, and no whispers in the underworld. He had vanished like a ghost, and the world had chosen to believe he was dead. But the world, it seemed, was wrong.
"He survived Garp..." Tsuru whispered, the words almost impossible to believe. "No one... no one could walk away from that kind of battle. Not without being buried in pieces."
Sengoku's face had gone pale. He had known Rosinante, once. Not just as a threat—but as something else. A young aspiring marine, as Garp's protégé. That memory now clashed violently with the monster the name had become. A Celestial Dragon slayer. A traitor to the world order. A symbol of everything the World Government feared in the shadows.
"If it's truly him..." Sengoku said slowly, "then everything is about to change. Again."
No one in the room disagreed. Because when Donquixote Rosinante returned from the grave and set course for Whitebeard's home... The age of uneasy peace was over.
Sengoku clasped his head, fingers sinking into his temples as though trying to crush the whirlwind of thoughts surging through his skull. The room felt like it was closing in on him.
Just when he believed he could begin restructuring the Grand Line—regaining the Marine's dominance after years of retreat and humiliation—Donquixote Rosinante's reemergence landed like a sledgehammer to the gut. A ghost from the past. A walking calamity.
But Sengoku was not a man who stayed down. The hesitation lasted only a breath.
His hands fell from his face, and he straightened in his chair with sudden, steely purpose. The weariness in his eyes gave way to something sharper: calculation. Instinct. The hardened mind of a Fleet Admiral who'd weathered wars and nightmares few could comprehend.
"Get me a fresh sheet," he said coldly, reaching for a pen with the same authority one might draw a sword. As he began scribbling orders with sharp, slanted strokes, he spoke without lifting his eyes.
"Transmit an emergency command to all fleets stationed in the New World. All bases are to immediately bolster their defenses. Triple the number of stationed Marines at every outpost—no exceptions. I want reinforcements rerouted from the Paradise Line if necessary."
The Rear Admiral snapped to attention.
"Recall all personnel currently on long-term leave regardless of rank or status. That includes vice admirals, elite officers, and even non-combat administrative personnel if they're deployable."
Sengoku's words came in a cold, calm stream—but each syllable rang like a war drum. He would not be caught unprepared. Not again. The last war had taught him bitter lessons. This time, there would be no excuses. He would crush the threat before it turned into a war.
Across the room, Vice Admiral Tsuru's gaze sharpened.
As the Chief of Staff of the Marines, she bore a critical portfolio—overseeing strategy, deployments, and emergency reallocation of human resources across all sectors. In times of extreme crisis, her authority extended even to retracting leaves granted to admirals. She was the spine of Marine command—and her expression told everyone in the room she intended to use that power now.
She turned slowly toward Borsalino. The vice admiral's usual relaxed smile was gone. He had gone still as a statue, already knowing what was coming.
"Borsalino," Tsuru said flatly, her voice like a blade through paper, "you can't afford to be on vacation right now. We'll need you deployed in the New World immediately."
She didn't need to say more. He simply nodded with a faint groan, muttering something unintelligible under his breath as the weight of duty settled back on his shoulders. Sengoku finished drafting the command order, slammed his seal onto the parchment, and passed it to the Rear Admiral.
"Make sure this reaches all fleet commanders within the hour. No delays. The enemy is already moving."
Then he turned to Tsuru again.
"We need to recall Garp. And Bogard. If the Whitebeard pirates and the Donquixote Family truly mean to join hands, I'll need them both on the Vanguard." His voice tightened as another realization clawed into him. "And I want to know—how long has that bastard Garp known that Rosinante is still alive?"
The room fell quiet again. Because only now did the pieces begin to align. Sengoku's eyes narrowed, a dangerous light flickering behind them. "He knew... he knew and said nothing…"
He remembered it now—how Garp had suddenly taken leave for the East Blue not long after the Sabaody incident. At the time, Sengoku had chalked it up to Garp's usual antics. But now?
Now it made perfect sense.
"That old dog… he met him. Met Rosinante. And kept it hidden from me..."
Sengoku stood, fists clenched at his sides.
"Tsuru," he said, voice trembling with restrained fury, "reach out to Garp. Tell him his vacation is over. I want him back at HQ within the week."
Tsuru raised a brow. "And if he refuses?"
Sengoku's lips curled into a humorless snarl.
"Then tell him this: if he doesn't report in, I'll come to the East Blue myself and drag him back by the collar."
A beat of silence. Then Tsuru sighed. "I'll get the message through."
Sengoku's gaze swept across the room before settling firmly on the three Admirals standing before him. Then, with the weight of a Fleet Admiral behind his voice, he made a declaration that shook the chamber.
"I want all three of you deployed into the New World."
A silence descended, heavy and sharp. Even the air seemed to still.
Vice Admiral Tsuru's brows rose slightly in visible surprise—a rare crack in her otherwise unreadable expression. Deploying all three Admirals simultaneously into the New World was not only unprecedented—it was a gamble of staggering proportions.
She spoke carefully, voice tempered with reason.
"You want to commit our entire top combat force to the New World…? What about the Holy Land? We're mandated to keep at least one Admiral stationed nearby at all times. If something happens at Mariejois, who will respond?"
Her concern wasn't mere bureaucracy—it was reality. The Grand Line's Paradise side was far from peaceful. Criminal factions, pirate lords, and revolutionary threats could easily erupt in chaos without proper deterrents.
But Sengoku's expression didn't waver. He stepped forward, planting both hands on the red oak table between them. His eyes burned—not with recklessness, but with the certainty of a man who had seen the tides shifting for far too long.
"The world is changing, Tsuru. Rapidly. We cannot cling to old doctrines while the sea reshapes itself around us. If we remain stagnant, we'll drown in our own traditions."
Then, with firm resolve, he dropped the next bombshell.
"I will approach the Gorosei with the proposal we shelved years ago. It's time we revisit the plan."
A murmur passed through the higher officers in the room. Most were unfamiliar with what Sengoku referred to—but Tsuru's sharp eyes widened slightly as her keen mind pieced it together. She turned slowly toward him.
"You mean… the Fourth Admiral Seat?" she asked.
Sengoku nodded once. The idea had been buried a decade ago—originally discussed just before Dragon defected from the Marines. A fourth seat, a permanent pillar to safeguard the balance of the seas and give the Admiralty true strategic flexibility.
At the time after Dragon's defection, the Elders had deemed the fourth seat unnecessary. Excessive. But now, as the New World threatened to erupt with alliances between Yonkos and legendary exiles like Rosinante, that excess had become necessity.
Tsuru's gaze instinctively drifted to Kuzan.
The youngest of the Admiral candidates-in-waiting, he had always been different—brilliant, introspective, and unpredictable. Despite being younger than Borsalino by nearly a decade, his growth had been meteoric. Originally, Sengoku had wanted to promote him to Admiral before Sakazuki, but the World Government had interfered.
Now, it seemed the Fleet Admiral was done waiting. Across the room, Borsalino stretched lazily on his chair, arms behind his head.
"Phew…" he muttered with an exaggerated sigh. "A thirty-two-year-old Admiral… Wouldn't that make him the youngest in Marine history?"
His smirk was unmistakable, but behind the jest, there was no protest. If anything, he was eager to push Kuzan forward—anything to keep his own name far from any paperwork or expectation.
Sengoku turned to Kuzan directly, voice steady.
"You're ready, Kuzan."
Kuzan, who had remained unusually quiet through the meeting since his initial outburst, blinked once. His arms were crossed, his posture casual—but his eyes showed the flicker of internal tension. He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
Sengoku continued.
"The Marines need more than brute strength. We need adaptability. Imagination. A different way of thinking. You've seen the world differently than the rest of us for years, Kuzan. It's time you carried the mantle to reshape it."
A heavy silence followed, but this time it was not out of shock—it was out of reverence. Something historic was unfolding.
Tsuru looked toward Kuzan once more, and this time her expression was softer, proud even. She nodded subtly in approval. "It's time you take on the mantle, Admiral Aokiji," she said quietly.
Sengoku turned back to the far wall; the map of the seas sprawled before him like a chessboard.
The storm had begun to move. And as the shadow of Rosinante stretched once again across the Grand Line, the Marines—the last bastion of order in a sea ruled by chaos—braced themselves for what might be the beginning of another age of fire and blood.