A few months passed in Marineford, flowing by in the same slow, tranquil rhythm that had long been soaked in Renzo's aura of laziness.
The uproar of the admiral promotion ceremony had long since faded. Kizaru occasionally sent strange and fancy desserts usually left at Renzo's dorm door, while Akainu had completely adopted a "pretend he doesn't exist" policy whenever they met.
Renzo was perfectly content with this arrangement. His world had once again shrunk to the dormitory, cafeteria, a quiet corner in the library, and the occasional peaceful time he shared with Ain.
Until that afternoon.
A strange, sharp, chaotic "noise", not a sound, but something that pierced directly into Renzo's mind like an ice pick, violently disrupted the calm world that his Realm of Laziness had always filtered.
It wasn't a physical sound but an emotional shockwave spreading across the entire Marine Headquarters, shock, disbelief, grief, and barely contained fury.
Such a massive collective emotional disturbance felt like someone had suddenly blasted high-volume heavy metal music into the serene white noise that usually lulled Renzo's senses. It was harsh, annoyingly so.
He was slumped in his usual seat in the library, but for once, he couldn't fall asleep or even zone out peacefully.
That overwhelming wave of noise and emotion made him irritable. His brows furrowed tightly.
"…So noisy…" he muttered, rolling over and trying to cover his head with The Geological Evolution of the Grand Line, but it did nothing to block out the disturbance.
Footsteps echoed, hurried, uneven, and panicked, completely unlike Ain's usual calm rhythm.
Several lower-ranking officers burst into the library, seemingly searching for something. Snippets of their anxious conversation drifted over:
"Was it confirmed?! It's really- "
"-total annihilation… it's horrible…"
"Edward Weevil… never even heard of that guy before!"
"Instructor Zephyr, he…"
"Rear Admiral Ain and Rear Admiral Binz… they're the only ones left…"
"Zephyr."
"Ain."
"Total annihilation."
"Only survivors."
Each word stabbed through Renzo's indifference like icy needles.
He suddenly sat upright, the thick book sliding off his face and thudding onto the floor.
The eyes that were usually half-closed and dull now opened fully, for once, not lazy, but filled with confusion, irritation, and a faint tremor of unease.
'Ain? The only survivor?'
That quiet girl who always shared silence with him, who brought him pudding sometimes, something had happened to her?
A suffocating sense of trouble crashed over him like a tidal wave, but this time, it felt… different.
It wasn't the kind of "trouble" he wanted to avoid. It was cold, heavy, and profoundly unsettling.
He stood up and, for the first time, walked toward the group of officers, his steps quick, even anxious.
His sudden approach, coupled with the invisible oppressive aura that surrounded him, made the officers instantly fall silent. Some even felt their energy drain away, their hearts heavy and fatigued just by being near him.
"...What happened?"
Renzo's voice was hoarse, stripped of its usual lazy tone, replaced by a tightness even he didn't notice.
The officers exchanged nervous looks before one finally gathered the courage to answer, voice trembling with restrained anger and grief:
"It's… Instructor Zephyr's trainee ship… it was attacked. By a man calling himself Whitebeard Jr., Edward Weevil… aside from Rear Admirals Ain and Binz, all the cadets… were killed in action."
The words fell like a hammer.
Renzo stood motionless. His face barely changed, but the light around him seemed to darken.
The grief and rage saturating Marineford found a new vortex, drawn toward him, absorbed and amplified by his ever-sensitive "field."
Ain survived… but…
That quiet place of peace, destroyed.
That small anchor of calm in his lazy world, shattered by chaos and noise.
An unfamiliar, icy irritation spread through him.
Not hatred toward a person, but resentment toward the event itself, for shattering the fragile balance of his peace.
He turned away from the officers like a puppet with cut strings and slowly walked to the window.
Outside, the usually disciplined Marineford was shrouded in invisible gloom.
Soldiers moved hurriedly, faces grim with anger and grief. The training ground's usual chants were gone, replaced by an oppressive silence.
Renzo's gaze drifted unfocused toward the distant sea.
'Edward Weevil… Whitebeard Jr.…'
The name grated against his mind, an intrusive, bloody note in his quiet symphony.
'Trouble.'
'Massive, unavoidable, bloody trouble.'
He stood there for a long, long time. The lazy, tranquil aura around him had changed, still heavy, but colder now, deathly still.
He said nothing, no vow of revenge, no cry of grief.
But for the first time, in those perpetually sleepy eyes, a faint, crystal-clear glint of icy disgust appeared.
Disgust toward the one who had shattered his peace, Edward Weevil, the source of this unbearable trouble.
The library was unnervingly silent, broken only by the distant, low tolling of bells mourning the fallen across Marineford.