Marine Headquarters, Marineford — Fleet Admiral's Office
A heavy, suffocating atmosphere still pressed down on the room.
Sengoku stood with both hands braced against his desk, his brows drawn so tightly together they looked sharp enough to crush a fly.
Across from him, Garp—rarely without a mouthful of senbei—wasn't chewing loudly this time. He merely held a rice cracker in his hand, his face wearing an uncharacteristically somber expression.
"So…" Garp rumbled, his voice lacking its usual booming cheer, "you really don't plan on trying Zephyr again?"
"That brat may be a complete mess," he added, "but he should at least listen to a few words from his old teacher, right?"
At those words, Sengoku let out a deep sigh, frustration and irritation flashing across his face.
"I did try!" he snapped. "How could I not?! I contacted him immediately!"
He rubbed his aching temples, his tone thick with anger.
"And what did that old bastard tell me? That he's sick! Gravely ill! Needs long-term rest! Then he had the nerve to say that Tesoro's wife and daughter—and his own wife—need him taken care of, so he's shut himself away and won't see anyone!"
Sengoku slammed his palm onto the desk as his voice rose.
"At a time like this, he pulls this on me?! He clearly guessed I wanted him to act as a mediator and deliberately dodged me! If his teacher won't step in, then who the hell can stop that lunatic?!"
Watching his old friend lose his temper, Garp silently shoved the senbei into his mouth. He chewed a few times… then paused. It tasted like ash.
With a heavy sigh, his voice dropped low.
"Yeah… that kid Gern isn't going to let this go. Not a chance. And the World Government—those idiots—are just…"
Sengoku knew it too well.
His eyes lowered as his fingers tapped unconsciously against the desktop. Silence stretched on for a long moment.
Then, as if steeling himself for something enormous, Sengoku slowly raised his head and fixed Garp with a grave look.
"So… Garp," he said hoarsely. "I want you… to go."
Garp's eyes widened slightly.
"If it comes to it…" Sengoku's gaze was painfully complex—part plea, part resolve. "You may have to stop him by force. At the very least… stop him before he does something that can't be undone."
At that, Garp's chewing came to a complete halt.
His brow furrowed deeply, the usual carefree grin vanishing from his face, replaced by an unusually severe expression.
"Sengoku…" he said slowly, weight pressing into every word. "You want me to stop Gern in that state?"
"You and I both know what that kid is like when he loses control. The fire he's bottling up right now could burn a hole straight through the sky! He's not going to go easy on me just because this old man taught him a few tricks back in the day."
Garp understood better than anyone.
A Gern consumed by rage, single-mindedly chasing vengeance—'Heaven-Shaking' Gern—was a monster beyond reason.
His power, when unleashed, was terrifying. His battles were reckless, brutal, utterly without restraint.
The current Gern was no weaker than the one who had once clashed head-on with Roger—if anything, he was stronger.
Stopping him?
That would be no different from a fight to the death.
Was the sea truly destined to gain yet another "Godfall Wasteland"?
...
Just as the two pillars of the Marines wrestled with the unbearable weight of the situation—
Bang!
The office doors were thrown open.
A messenger burst inside, pale-faced and gasping for breath, forgetting all decorum.
"R-Report to the Fleet Admiral! Vice Admiral Garp!"
"Emergency situation! We… we've lost contact with Admiral Gern!"
"What?!" Sengoku shot upright, his pupils contracting violently as the color drained from his face. "What did you just say?! Lost contact?!"
"Wasn't he supposed to be returning through the Grand Line?! What about the surveillance fleets?!"
The messenger trembled under Sengoku's glare.
"W-We were still tracking the merchant vessel's signal earlier, but ten minutes ago—all signals vanished! Every surveillance unit stationed at key points along the Grand Line reports no sightings! No Marine warship, no high-speed movement, nothing!"
"He… he vanished. Like he disappeared into thin air!"
A freezing chill surged from Sengoku's feet straight up to his skull, plunging him into an icy abyss.
Lost contact?!
In the Grand Line—waters under the tightest Marine surveillance—they lost track of a Marine Admiral?!
It sounded absurd.
But Sengoku instantly understood what it meant.
Gern already knew.
And he had used some method to completely sever Marine tracking.
After all, Gern hadn't disappeared alone—he had been with Dracule Mihawk. And Mihawk wasn't a Devil Fruit user.
Who could possibly transport both of them through the air?
More importantly—
If they failed to stop Gern within the Grand Line…
If that uncontrollable force had already stormed into the New World…
The consequences—
Sengoku didn't dare imagine them.
As shock rooted Sengoku to the spot and Garp's expression darkened further—
Bang!
The door was slammed open again.
Another Marine communications officer came tumbling in, his face deathly pale, terror flooding his eyes. Even his voice cracked as he screamed:
"F-Fleet Admiral Sengoku!!! Vice Admiral Garp!!! Th-This is bad—r-really bad!!!"
"Ad-Admiral Gern—he's appeared at the Sabaody Archipelago!!!"
The man was shaking so badly his words tangled together.
"H-He… he—he decapitated two Celestial Dragons!! Right in the Lawless Zone!! And then—then he picked up their heads—and vanished again!!!"
"What?!" Sengoku roared, as if struck by lightning. He lunged forward and seized the officer by the collar, eyes bulging like bronze bells, his voice hoarse with disbelief.
"That's impossible!!! Absolutely impossible!!!"
"The last signal placed him only recently in the first half of the Grand Line! Even at maximum speed, there's no way he could cross half the Grand Line and appear in Sabaody in such a short time! That defies all logic!!!"
"F-Fleet Admiral… the report is confirmed."
"…It's over." Sengoku collapsed back into his chair, staring blankly ahead as he muttered, "This is really going to be catastrophic… a disaster beyond measure…"
"He's lost his mind!" Garp snapped, fully grasping the gravity of it now. He snatched up his Justice cloak and strode toward the exit without hesitation.
...
Meanwhile — Sabaody Archipelago, Lawless Zone
The once-chaotic district had fallen into a deathly silence.
A thick, nauseating stench of blood hung in the air.
A Marine Commodore stationed at Sabaody stood trembling with a squad of soldiers amid the wreckage.
Before them lay two headless corpses clad in the ornate garments of Celestial Dragons, sprawled in sticky pools of blood. The severed necks were disturbingly smooth—too clean.
Nearby, the iconic bubble helmets lay discarded, smeared with filth.
Not far away, several World Government officials and CP agents lay collapsed on the ground, having soiled themselves in terror. Their eyes were unfocused, as if they had glimpsed something beyond human comprehension.
The Commodore's face was as white as paper. His body shook uncontrollably.
His legs gave out.
Thump.
He collapsed to the ground, mouth hanging open as only a choking, rasping sound escaped his throat.
"Hh… hh…"
Not a single complete word came out.
Pure terror had robbed him of speech.
In his mind, the scene from minutes earlier replayed again and again like a waking nightmare—
A figure wreathed in black-and-red lightning had appeared out of nowhere, like a phantom, without the slightest warning.
An overwhelming killing intent flooded the area, freezing everyone in place.
Two warped black flashes—entangled with violently vibrating shockwaves—slashed through the air!
Two bubble-helmeted heads soared skyward, expressions of shock and disbelief still frozen on their faces!
The figure didn't even spare the scene a glance.
He casually grabbed the two heads—and then, just like when he arrived, vanished again, dissolving into the air without a trace.
The entire process was suffocatingly fast.
Precise like an execution.
And yet it carried the ultimate desecration—the ultimate contempt for the world's established order.
"Heaven-Shaking" Gern…
Had returned.
And in the most unhinged, violent, lawless manner imaginable—
He had issued a blood-soaked declaration of war against the entire World Government.
And this…
Was only the beginning.