Punk Hazard sat in the gateway waters of the New World, close to the Red Line, and Borsalino was a lightning-fast man of light.
So while the God's Knights and the CP organization in Mary Geoise were still preparing to depart for Marine Headquarters, Borsalino arrived almost immediately afterward.
As for Sakazuki, he was already stationed at Marine Headquarters, so there was no need for him to run anywhere.
When the fleet on the Mary Geoise side began to move, Sakazuki headed up to the highest level of the Fortress of Justice at Marine Headquarters.
The Fleet Admiral's office was up here.
He didn't even need to knock. When Sakazuki stepped out of the elevator, he saw that Fleet Admiral Sengoku's door was already open.
Inside, Fleet Admiral Sengoku stood by the window with a cup of tea in hand, quietly watching the view outside.
For some reason, Sakazuki suddenly felt that Sengoku's back looked a little lonely.
Even with the door open, Sakazuki stopped at the entrance and knocked lightly twice.
Without turning around, Sengoku seemed to recognize him. He took a sip of tea and said,
"Come in, Sakazuki."
Sakazuki didn't waste time. He walked in and closed the door behind him.
Sengoku kept looking out the window, not turning, not speaking.
Sakazuki was silent for a moment, then walked over as well. He stood beside the Fleet Admiral, shoulder to shoulder, both of them watching the scene beyond the Fortress of Justice.
Marine Headquarters was operating as usual. Warships came and went. Marines hurried back and forth across the plaza. The sun was bright, the weather clear.
"Fleet Admiral, Saint Saturn is bringing the God's Knights and some members of the CP organization to Marine Headquarters. You…" After watching for a while, Sakazuki finally spoke.
Sengoku showed no surprise at all. His expression remained calm, with a faint, detached smile at the corner of his mouth. "So they're coming in the end."
"Why?" Sakazuki's voice carried restrained anger. "Why did you do this? Why would you go this far and let Ortoren run wild? All these years, without your support from the shadows, he could never have reached this point, let alone hide it from the World Government for so long. Why? As Fleet Admiral, why would you push the Marines into a crisis like this?"
As an Admiral, if Sakazuki truly wanted to investigate, there was almost nothing within the Marines he couldn't dig up. Even if something was kept from him, it would still leave traces.
Ever since returning from the New World war against Whitebeard, Sakazuki had investigated Ortoren relentlessly. By the end, he had all but concluded that Fleet Admiral Sengoku was on Ortoren's side.
"Sakazuki…" Sengoku heard the resentment and indignation in his voice, yet showed no displeasure. Instead, that same gentle, calm smile remained on his face as he asked, "What is the belief our Marines are supposed to uphold?"
"Justice," Sakazuki answered without hesitation.
"And what is justice?" Sengoku nodded, as if accepting the answer, then immediately asked another question.
"Eliminating 'evil' is justice," Sakazuki said as if it were self-evident.
"Then do you believe the Marines today are walking the path of justice?" Sengoku asked again.
"Of course. We eliminate pirates, we eliminate 'evil.' So naturally we're walking the path of justice," Sakazuki said with a firm nod.
"Then are pirates the only 'evil'?" Sengoku looked at him.
That single question brought Sakazuki's iron certainty to a sudden halt.
"You want to talk to me about the World Government's dark side?" Sakazuki's tone turned colder. "As an Admiral, I know plenty. Don't assume I'm ignorant of the ugliness in Mary Geoise. Over the years, the Marines have taken part in these things too… but—"
"But what?" Sengoku asked.
Sakazuki opened his mouth, but words caught in his throat. Sengoku, however, spoke in a low, steady voice.
"But the World Government isn't without merits. As long as we Marines work twice as hard, first pacify the Four Seas and eliminate external threats like pirates, then find a way to turn inward and sweep out the parasites, one day we'll be able to truly carry out justice… is that what you mean?"
Sakazuki didn't think it was entirely that simple, but after a brief moment of thought, he still nodded. "Yes…"
"Commander-in-Chief Kong once thought the same," Sengoku said softly. "He chose to walk that road. In the end, he failed. The Marines were still the same Marines."
"And me… in the first few years after I became an Admiral, I thought maybe it was just that Kong wasn't capable enough. I believed that if it were me, I could succeed. I could change something. So I chose the same road."
"It's a loop, Sakazuki. Over these hundreds of years, the people in Mary Geoise have tightened too many reins around our necks. What they want isn't a righteous Marines. What they want is an obedient Marines. I only understood that after losing again and again…"
After a brief pause, Sengoku smiled again and said, "Back then, Ortoren told me that if nothing changed, then just looking at me, looking at Commander-in-Chief Kong, was enough for him to see the end of the Marines' future. So he insisted he had to be the one to bring about that change."
"How old was he that year? Twenty? Twenty-one, twenty-two? A kid like that, saying that just by looking at me he'd already seen where the Marines would end up. Do you know how that made me feel?"
Sakazuki seemed shaken. His lips moved stiffly as he asked quietly, "How did it make you feel?"
"How did it make me feel…" Sengoku let out a long, weary sigh. "It made me realize I couldn't refute him. Because… he was right."
"No matter how I played the internal political game, no matter how obedient I was, no matter how carefully I arranged things, in the end I still couldn't resist the absolute control coming from Mary Geoise. Military funding, provisions, weapons and ammunition, warships, everything. The Marines had no autonomy at all. It was like a claw locked around our throats."
"I once believed that if I compromised a little more, if I acted a little more obedient, maybe they would trust us more and give us more room to breathe. But every compromise I made, every step back I took, only brought even tighter suppression…"
Sakazuki stayed silent. Sengoku didn't linger on that point either. He continued, "Even so, I still didn't place my hopes on Ortoren. How should I put it… back then, he was too young. Maybe he was talented, but he didn't feel reliable."
"But looking back now, I'm glad. Truly glad that I still chose to try. I sent him to G-5 as base commander. I told him I wouldn't give him a single Belly. If he wanted something, he'd have to get it himself. In exchange, I promised that at Headquarters, I wouldn't interfere with anything he did. As long as he didn't go too far, didn't tear the sky open, I'd cover for him where I could…"
"I was using him to test the waters," Sengoku gave a self-mocking laugh. "A bit despicable, wasn't it? I wanted to see how far he could go. If he failed in the end, the Marines wouldn't lose much. The only thing sacrificed would be his personal future. And at the same time, I could learn from him, gather experience, and wait for a better moment down the line…"
Sakazuki listened to Sengoku laying himself bare like this, and still said nothing.
Sengoku continued, almost talking to himself now, his eyes growing brighter and brighter.
"But that brat really surprised me. What he did went far beyond anything I imagined. He was more aggressive than I expected, more unrestrained, more… wildly daring."
"And the strange thing is, he was that radical, that reckless, yet it was as if the gods were helping him. Like the sea itself favored him. He never once made a catastrophic mistake, never once committed an error that couldn't be undone."
"Every risky move he made ended up succeeding. It was like he could see the shape of the future, then lay out his plans along that line. It left me stunned."
"And because of that, I saw real hope in him. Because of that, I invested more and more into him, until now…"
"So much that you're willing to throw yourself in for him now?" Sakazuki finally spoke.
"No. It's no longer just for him, Sakazuki…" Sengoku took a sip of tea, a calm, almost generous smile on his face. "It's for the rebirth of the Marines."
"Things have come this far. We can't build without breaking first. This is the closest we've come in more than eight hundred years to success, to a path where we can truly carry out justice. For that, I won't hesitate to pay any price…"
Seeing Sakazuki still silent, even a little dazed, Sengoku smiled again. "To be honest, two days ago I was still worried. I kept thinking… what choice would you, Sakazuki, make? What about Borsalino? And that Aramaki, would he bring trouble?"
He paused slightly, then said with a smile, "But when I woke up this morning, those worries were gone. I suddenly realized that everything I was thinking about, Ortoren would have thought of too."
"So I only need to do what I'm supposed to do. As for the rest… leave it to that protagonist who seems to be favored by the sea."