The Grand Line's evening air was thick with salt and the day's fading warmth, the sea a rolling plain of darkening indigo beneath a sky smeared with orange and purple. The Marine vessel cut a steady path through the swells, a floating fortress of white and blue. On its main deck, a scene of profound tranquility clashed with the ship's martial purpose.
Admiral Issho, known to the world as Fujitora, sat cross-legged on a simple mat, a picture of concentrated serenity. Before him, a steaming, oversized bowl of ramen sat on the polished deck. He held his shikomizue—the sword-cane that was both his weapon and guide—propped against his shoulder, its presence as natural as a limb. With a pair of chopsticks in hand, he navigated the bowl with an ease that belied his sightless eyes. Each deliberate movement—the careful gathering of noodles, the gentle blow to cool a mouthful, the satisfied hum that rumbled in his chest—was a small, deliberate ceremony. The rich, savory aroma of pork broth and scallions created a tiny, defiant bubble of domestic comfort amid the vast, duty-bound ocean.
This peace was shattered by a thunder of boots on the gangway. A young marine, his face pale as fresh sailcloth and slick with a cold sweat, skidded to a halt before the Admiral, his uniform disheveled from his frantic sprint. He gasped for air, the sound ragged and loud in the quiet space.
"A-Admiral! Admiral, sir!"
Fujitora didn't stop eating. He brought another bundle of noodles to his lips, slurping them with audible appreciation before speaking, his voice a low, weathered gravel. "The deck is not for running, Lieutenant. You'll scuff the wood and disturb the cook's excellent broth. Now, breathe. Then speak."
The marine, a man named Kaito, forced himself to stand at attention, though his shoulders trembled. "W-we have an urgent distress call, sir! Priority Alpha! It's… it's from a Celestial Dragon vessel!"
The chopsticks in Fujitora's hand paused mid-air for the briefest moment. The only sign of his reaction was a slight tightening of his knuckles. He set the chopsticks across the rim of the bowl with a soft click. "Well? Out with it. Is our 'god' complaining that his champagne is insufficiently bubbly, or has a seagull dared to defile his gilded rail?" The dryness in his tone could have seasoned the sea itself.
"No, sir! It's a Mayday. The vessel, the Divine Entitlement, is shipwrecked. They've run aground on Lagoonia Island."
A heavy silence followed, broken only by the sigh of the wind in the rigging and the distant cry of a News Coo. Fujitora's head tilted a fraction, as if he were listening to a frequency only he could hear. The name seemed to hang in the air, as tangible and cold as a sudden fog.
"Lagoonia…" Fujitora mused, his blind eyes seeming to stare through the ship's mast toward some internal chart. "That is a… sovereign's territory. In the heart of the Paradise half of the Grand Line. A place where even the Log Pose needles get nervous and point in circles to avoid it. Not even the Emperors, in all their territorial squabbling, dare to plant their flags or challenge its master. A restricted region by ancient accord and sheer, terrifying reputation."
Kaito nodded vigorously, then remembered his audience and stammered, "Y-yes, sir! The navigator confirmed it. The call was weak, broken… but the coordinates are unmistakable. Lagoonia."
Fujitora let out a long, slow breath that was more sigh than respiration. He reached up and stroked his bearded chin, the rough sound of his calloused fingers against the whiskers strangely loud. "A Celestial Dragon," he murmured, almost to himself, "a self-proclaimed 'creator of the world,' shipwrecked like common flotsam on the shores of a true Sovereign's domain. How… poetically problematic." The word 'problematic' carried the weight of a coming storm. It meant political cataclysm. It meant the very real possibility of a war that could drag the Marines between the anvil of the World Nobles' wrath and the hammer of an unknown, Emperor-level power.
"W-what are your orders, sir?" Kaito's voice was a tight wire of anxiety.
Fujitora moved. In one fluid motion, he rose to his full, imposing height, the purple folds of his yukata and cloak settling around him like the wings of a great, settling bird. He placed his bowl carefully to the side, ensuring not a drop of the precious broth was spilled—a small, telling act of respect for the simple things. He planted his shikomizue firmly on the deck, his hands resting on its pommel.
"Change course," he said, his voice no longer dry but forged iron, quiet and absolute. "Set a heading for Lagoonia Island. Maximum safe speed."
The order hit Kaito like a physical blow. His eyes widened. "But, sir! The regulations, the sovereign waters… Fleet Admiral Sakazuki's standing orders regarding unauthorized incursions into—"
"Lieutenant."
Fujitora did not raise his voice. He didn't need to. The single word, sharp and final, cut through the young marine's panic like his own blade. The Admiral's sightless gaze pinned Kaito in place. "Do I need to repeat myself? A life—however reprehensible its owner may be—has issued a distress call. We are the Marines. Our justice may be a tangled vine, but at its root is a duty to protect. Even," he added, the ghost of his earlier dryness returning, "from the consequences of their own monumental stupidity. Or would you prefer to explain to the Five Elders that we left their cherished 'Saint' to the mercies of a power that does not recognize their bubbles?"
The image was a potent one. Kaito's face cycled from white to a sickly green. He snapped a perfect, trembling salute. "N-no, sir! Course for Lagoonia, maximum speed! Right away, Admiral!"
As Kaito scurried off, his shouts to the helmsman and navigator cracking with urgency, the deck of the ship erupted into controlled chaos. Sailors scrambled like ants, shouting coordinates, hauling on lines, the great vessel groaning as it began its ponderous turn towards the deeper, darker stretches of the New World.
Fujitora stood unmoved at the center of the storm, a mountain in a gale. He turned his face toward the bow, where the first stars were beginning to prick the twilight. He could not see the dreaded outline of Lagoonia on the horizon, but he could feel its pull—a heavy, ominous magnet in the world's fabric. He could smell the change in the air, the scent of the familiar Grand Line giving way to something older and wilder.
"A sovereign who frightens Emperors," he mumbled, a grim, humorless smile touching his lips. "And a 'god' who has forgotten he can drown. What a delightful mess to walk into." With a soft tap of his cane, he turned and walked calmly toward his quarters, the shouts of his crew and the groan of the ship fading into a backdrop for his own silent thoughts. The bowl of half-finished ramen, forgotten and cooling on the deck, was the last testament to the peace of the evening, now irrevocably broken by the pride of the heavens and the secrets of the deep.
*****
The air above the Sovereign Territory's border waters was a sharp, clean blue, scoured by winds that carried the distant, iron-like scent of glacial ice from the north. The Black Revenge, a vision of maritime menace with its black hull and blood-red sails, cut a silent path through the choppy grey sea. At the prow, a figure stood as still as a figurehead, her silver battle-braid tapping a quiet rhythm against her shoulder.
Captain Jeanne "La Lionne" de Clisson rested her palms on the cold railing, her amber eyes scanning the horizon line where the jurisdiction of the World Government ended and the domain of Grutte Pier Dorian began. This was a line drawn not on maps, but in understood fear and old power. The only sounds were the sigh of the waves against the hull, the creak of the rigging, and the low hum she sometimes made—an old Bret Sea shanty about drowned bells.
The calm was broken not by a shout, but by the measured, heavy tread of armored sandals on oak. Vitus Quinctilius Varo approached, his modified lorica segmentata clicking with a soldier's metronome rhythm. He stopped a precise three paces behind her starboard side, his elongated arms folded behind his back. His voice, when it came, was a dry recitation, a report to a commanding officer.
"Captain. We have received verified reports from the border lookout snails. A shipwreck has occurred."
Jeanne didn't turn. She watched a distant albatross tilt on the wind. "And this is relevant to our patrol because, Varo? Ships founder every day. The sea is a graveyard with better scenery." A trace of annoyance, like a lemon rind in wine, sharpened her tone.
Before Varo could deliver his methodically prepared assessment of why it was, in fact, critically relevant, a thunder of footfalls shook the deck. William Fitz-Alyn, a mountain of muscle and wild red hair, bounded up the companionway with the force of a launched catapult. He skidded to a halt, his great chest heaving, the iron greaves on his shins screeching against the deck.
"Captain! Big news!" he bellowed, his voice echoing off the sails. "We just got word! There's a shipwrecked vessel!"
Jeanne's eye twitched, a tiny tic beneath the scar on her cheek. She slowly turned her head, her gaze sliding from the horizon to Varo's stoic face, then to William's excited one. A deep, weary sigh escaped her. "Yes. The Chief Tactician just informed me. Thank you for the echoing confirmation, William."
William's bearded face scrunched in confusion, then indignation. He loomed over Varo, though the Long-Arm man didn't flinch. "Well, you should've told her faster! That's time-sensitive loot just sitting there!"
Varo's head rotated with the slow, disdainful grace of a tower-mounted cannon. "First," he intoned, his Latinate accent frosting the word, "the priority is identification, not 'loot.' Second, my report follows protocol. It is not a… barked alert."
"A barked alert gets the hunt started!" William shot back, leaning down so they were nose-to-chin. "Your 'protocol' would have us filing a report while the good timber sinks!"
Jeanne's patience, a thin parchment stretched over a furnace of vengeance, finally tore. "ENOUGH!" she snarled, the sound carrying the rasp of a cutlass being drawn. Both men stiffened. "Why, by every storm in the New World, should I care about one more splintered hull? We are border-wardens for the Cross of the North, not salvage divers!"
William opened his mouth, but Varo, straightening his spine to its full, rigid length, beat him to it. "Captain, the analysis of the wreckage's markings indicates—" he began, his voice the calm before the storm.
"IT'S A WORLD GOVERNMENT SHIP!" William blurted out, unable to contain himself. He grinned, a fierce, wild thing. "And it was transporting a Celestial Dragon! Can you believe the luck? A stranded 'god'!"
The words hung in the salty air.
Varo closed his sightless eyes and brought a long-fingered hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, his armor emitting a soft groan of protest. "That… was the next point in my briefing," he muttered, the ghost of the Three Lost Fleets seeming to haunt his shoulders.
Every other sound on the Black Revenge vanished. The crew frozen in their tasks. The wind itself became motionless, the sails going limp. Jeanne de Clisson became utterly still, a statue of coiled fury. Then, she moved. She turned fully, and the air around her grew cold. Her voice, when it came, was a low, terrible thing, quieter than a whisper but cutting deeper than any shout.
"A Celestial Dragon," she repeated. The words were not a question. They were a curse, a verdict, a promise. She took one step toward her officers, her boot heel striking the deck like a gavel. "A Celestial Dragon. Wrecked. And you two were bickering about protocol and loot?" Her volume exploded. "WHY DIDN'T YOU LEAD WITH THAT?!"
William had the sense to look abashed, shuffling his enormous feet. Varo merely bowed his head a fraction. "The details required confirm—"
"The detail is that a child of the 'gods' who think the ocean is their bathwater is sitting in the drink!" Jeanne cut him off, her amber eyes blazing. She paced, a lioness in a cage of her own rage. "Where?" she demanded, whirling back. "Where is this fortunate wreck?"
"Lagoonia!" William interjected, eager to redeem himself. "The Eightfold Atoll."
Jeanne stopped pacing. A slow, wicked smile spread across her face, devoid of any warmth. "Lagoonia," she breathed, savoring the word. "The sovereign islands under the watch of the Black Tortoise. The Celestial Dragons think their holy bubbles let them float over every border, into every sea." Her hand went to the lioness-tooth necklace at her throat. "They have just sailed their gilded barge into the wrong damn waters. This isn't a rescue mission. This is a teaching moment. We will show them that in these seas, even gods can drown, and their actions have… consequences."
"Orders, Captain?" William asked, his own fierce grin returning, his hand drifting to the hilt of the living sword, 'Lion-Trap,' at his hip. The blade seemed to shiver in its scabbard in anticipation.
Varo let out a short, sharp breath. "She has already issued the strategic directive, you long-legged alarm bell. We change course. Immediately."
Jeanne gave a single, sharp nod, her mind racing ahead of the ship. "How long?"
Varo's head tilted, his Future Sight Haki not for combat, but for calculating currents, winds, and the stubborn flow of time. "With this wind? A few hours. Perhaps less if we risk the shoals near the Atoll's southern teeth."
"Good," Jeanne said, her voice dropping back into a controlled, deadly calm. She turned and strode toward her cabin, her crimson coat flaring behind her like a battle standard. "That gives me time. I need to make a call."
As the Black Revenge came alive with shouted orders and the groan of timbers turning hard to starboard, the two officers were left on the deck. William elbowed Varo in the ribs, a gesture that clanged against his armor. "See? Barked alert. Gets the hunt started."
Varo didn't deign to look at him, his milky eyes fixed on the new horizon ahead—a horizon that now held the scent of vengeance, political dynamite, and the sweet, salty chance to make a 'god' bleed. "First, we intercept," he murmured to himself, the strategist in him already laying out the grim steps to come. "Second, we isolate. Third… we see if a dragon can scream."
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