Chapter 72 – Beyond the Emperor's Tier
Grand Line — New World, G-11 Marine Branch.
Tachibana Kyūjō lounged casually in the branch office, trading idle chatter with an old man contentedly demolishing a stack of donuts—none other than the Marine Hero, Garp.
"Hey, Gramps Garp," Kyūjō asked, tilting his head, "why do you think Uncle Sengoku stationed you at G-11, while Kuzan ended up at Sakazuki's G-9?"
He squinted in mock suspicion. "Put the two of them in one place and no one supervising… are you sure they wouldn't start pounding each other before the enemy even shows up?"
Honestly, if the four Yonko delayed their move a little longer—long enough to keep Aokiji and Akainu under the same roof—Kyūjō was convinced those two would clash first, long before any real battle began.
Ice and magma weren't their only opposites. Their personalities, their justice, the way they faced the world—everything clashed. Neither of them knew how to give an inch.
Garp shrugged, crammed a whole donut into his mouth, then wiped sugar all over his Marine uniform as if that were perfectly normal. Only then did he answer, easy and unbothered.
"Kuzan and Sakazuki are polar opposites, sure—but they're Admirals. They know where the line is," Garp said. "Don't lose sleep over it, Kyūjō. Each of them has his own justice, and neither will betray it."
His voice hardened—not toward Kuzan or Sakazuki, but toward a different target entirely: the World Government.
"If the Marines can't stand united, we might as well pull out of the New World," Garp added flatly. "Hand these seas over to the Yonko and at least preserve our strength at Headquarters."
If only the Celestial Dragons would lift a finger against pirates. But no—those so-called world nobles did nothing but drown themselves in luxury and decadence, clinging to their status while preaching about "balance" between pirates and Marines… and contributing nothing.
And behind their authority, there was power—vast, hidden power.
Garp's thoughts drifted, unbidden, to an incident from decades past—the God Valley battle.
— — —
Back then—before the battle even began—Garp hadn't been sure they could win.
Even with Gol D. Roger agreeing to cooperate, their enemy wasn't just anyone. They were going up against the most dangerous man alive at the time:
Rocks D. Xebec, the solitary ruler of the seas before Roger's era.
Even now, Garp believed that Rocks at his peak stood far above Garp's own prime.
If today's Yonko and Admirals could be placed on tiers, then Rocks had already stepped one level above them.
Garp called that echelon the Emperor Tier—and Rocks was a king among kings.
With all three forms of Haki refined to their apex and a Mythical Zoan pushed to its absolute limit, Rocks D. Xebec truly deserved the title Worldbreaker. (Yes, this diverges from the original narrative—Kyūjō's story branches before the Elbaf arc and even pre-Wano's end.)
Worse yet, the core members of the Rocks Pirates were living legends:
Names that still ruled the seas to this day.
Edward Newgate, the Whitebeard. Charlotte Linlin of the Big Mom Pirates…
Even a young Kaido—at the time just a low-ranking crewmate—sailed under Rocks's flag.
Now that same Kaido was one of the Yonko.
In raw might, the Rocks Pirates of that era were not inferior to the combined strength of today's four Yonko. And even so, all they managed to do was make the World Government feel… threatened.
In response, the Government unleashed the force that lurked behind their authority—
The Holy Knights, guardians of Celestial Dragon supremacy.
How strong were they?
There had been only six Holy Knights at the time. Three were estimated to be Admiral-class, and the other three were Admiral candidates.
And their leader—Figarland Garling—was a swordsman so fearsome that even Garp could never forget him.
With a single stroke, Garling had wounded the young Edward Newgate.
It was true that Whitebeard, Garp, and Roger had not yet reached their peaks. Even so, they were already touching the Emperor Tier.
From what Garp had seen, Figarland Garling stood on the same level as Rocks—one step above Garp, Roger, and Whitebeard of that period.
Even so, Garp believed that at their respective peaks, he, Roger, and Whitebeard would not have been inferior to Rocks or Garling.
But time is merciless. Bodies age; strength and Haki wane.
Now, Garp felt that he and Whitebeard were stuck somewhere between the Emperor Tier and the King Tier above it.
His gaze slid to Tachibana Kyūjō.
As a seasoned Busoshoku practitioner, Garp sensed that Kyūjō's Armament Haki had pierced beyond the former ceiling—just like Garp's own had, in the old days.
He called it "the old days" because he no longer stood there now.
Without the support of Haoshoku, Garp knew he couldn't even manage "half a step" into the King Tier anymore.
— — —
What Garp didn't know was that Tachibana Kyūjō had already surpassed that threshold.
Not only his Busoshoku Haki, but also his Kenbunshoku and Haoshoku had reached their apex.
In terms of understanding the tiers of power, Kyūjō stood at the very edge of the path.
His body continued to evolve thanks to the effects of Thunder Breathing 3.0.
Even so, his growth had begun to slow—he sensed the method's limit drawing near.
To go beyond, he would need to develop Thunder Breathing 4.0.
But creating such a technique would be a monumental undertaking. Even Kyūjō couldn't say if it could be completed in a single lifetime.
— — —
Dawn broke over the harbor at G-11, and the atmosphere turned feverishly busy.
Warships from Marine Headquarters arrived one after another, guided in by G-11 personnel, docking in precise formation along the outer piers of Malt Island.
By noon, nearly three hundred warships had come to port.
The same was happening at G-9, under Akainu's command.
Over a hundred senior officers from Headquarters, leading fifty thousand elite troops, now stood assembled on the G-11 parade grounds.
They waited for the address of Vice Admiral "Seiryu" Tachibana Kyūjō—the formal briefing before the New World War began.
— — —
Three days later, Kyūjō was on a Den Den Mushi line with Akainu, his expression set and stormy.
The news wasn't good.
The Marines relied on Vegapunk's surveillance network to track the Yonko's movements in real time.
But last night, every single device had failed—simultaneously.
Worse, all four Yonko and their elite officers had put to sea. The network's collapse meant the Navy had lost their trail entirely.
Which suggested only one thing: the Yonko had colluded and were launching a major operation against Marine branches in the New World.
But where were they headed?
Were they targeting Akainu's G-9? Or Kyūjō's G-11?
Or… would they strike both at once?
If that happened, should G-11 and G-9 combine forces to avoid being crushed piecemeal?
The two branches weren't far apart, but even then it would take a day by sea. If every Emperor converged on a single point, how would the Marines hold?
Kyūjō ran through the possibilities, brow furrowing.
— — —
Strictly speaking, this wasn't his arena.
He was a frontline fighter. Strategy wasn't his job—that was for tacticians like Sengoku.
And sure enough—before Kyūjō could draft any plan, Sengoku had already issued new orders.
Merge the forces of G-11 and G-9, and strike directly at Totto Land.
Target: Charlotte Linlin and the full might of the Big Mom Pirates.
— — —
At Marineford Headquarters, Sengoku sat in the command room, eyes flicking across maps and staff officers.
He smiled thinly to himself.
"You're pirates, aren't you?" he mused. "Instead of fighting, you're trying to play strategy?"
"You think our tacticians are all asleep at their desks?"
— — —
With the supreme commander's order, the Marine war machine roared to life.
Almost a thousand great warships rolled forward like a vast tide, sweeping aside anything in the twin assault lanes leading to one convergent point:
Whole Cake Island, the heart of Charlotte Linlin's dominion.
Two days later, Kyūjō's and Akainu's armadas had linked up, now less than fifty kilometers from the target.
— — —
Elsewhere, at the border of Totto Land, Charlotte Linlin was with Kaido when a panicked transmission came through from Whole Cake Island.
"Uwaaa… Mama! Mama!"
"The Marines! Admirals! They're coming—"
"So many ships… Whole Cake Island is surrounded!"
Linlin's eyes flushed a furious, scorching red.
Rational thought blew away like ash.
Before Kaido could react, she kicked into the sky, mounting Zeus and streaking toward her capital in a crackle of storm-lit clouds.
Kaido exhaled, resigned.
His body stretched and spiraled, scales blooming into the colossal form of an azure dragon. He surged after her, cutting a blazing path through the heavens.
"If strategy fails," he rumbled, "then so be it."
"You think Kaido of the Beasts plays at tactics?"
However many Marines there were, his answer never changed: Crush them.
Seeing their captains depart, the Big Mom Pirates and Beasts Pirates glanced at one another.
At last, King and Charlotte Katakuri took command of their respective fleets and set sail, racing toward Whole Cake Island.
— — —
Meanwhile, near G-9…
Shanks of the Red Hair Pirates and Edward Newgate, the Whitebeard, sat aboard the same ship.
Truth be told, Whitebeard hadn't been keen on this joint operation with the other Yonko.
But he had too many sons.
They needed space—territory to live, to grow.
If the Marines remained entrenched in the New World, conflict with Shanks would be inevitable—and far worse when it came.
Rather than wait for a two-front disaster, Whitebeard chose to move now, alongside Kaido, Linlin, and Shanks—to uproot the Marines first.
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