—Broadcast—
The four bounties stayed on the screen long enough for the hall to finish absorbing them. Then Brannew advanced the presentation.
The next section covered the Yonko cadres — the organizational depth behind the four faces. He moved through each crew methodically: the Beasts Pirates first, because they were the most relevant, because the bounties and capabilities of Kaido's inner tier had expanded significantly in the five years since the Sky Screen had started showing the world what was coming.
"The Five Calamities," he said, as the images populated the screen. "Tama, the Beast Disaster. Meruem, the Insect Disaster. And the three veteran Disasters. Each of these five carries a bounty above two billion Berries." He let that figure work for a moment. "They can be engaged only at the Admiral level. The Tobiroppo subordinates to them can be handled by Vice Admirals — but the gap between those two tiers is not a gradient. It is a cliff."
The Royal Guards that Sakazuki had established — the formation that operated above the standard Vice Admiral ceiling — were the only element below Admiral rank that could be deployed in front-line combat against Calamity-level targets. The rest of the Marine's structure dealt with everything else.
The Big Mom Pirates, the Blackbeard Pirates, the Joker Pirates followed in sequence. The hall processed the images and the associated intelligence and stored it in the specific way that trained people store tactical information — not as passive knowledge but as active maps, cross-referenced against the faces they'd already memorized, positioned in a mental framework of priorities.
When the prepared material was complete, Brannew stepped back.
"Questions and commentary from the floor," he said. "Admirals first."
Smoker was already on his feet.
"The Joker Pirates' cadre configuration." He didn't approach the podium — he spoke from where he was, which communicated something about his relationship to formality at this stage of his career. "The information on that section is incomplete. The former Shichibukai have dispersed since Marineford. Several of them appear nowhere in the current intelligence picture. We're classifying them as Buggy's cadres on the basis that they haven't appeared elsewhere, which is not the same as confirming they're his cadres."
He sat down, which was also a statement — the point had been made, and elaborating on it would be treating his colleagues as people who needed elaboration.
Esdeath followed before the pause had fully established itself. She had been waiting for the opening and took it without ceremony.
"I agree. The intelligence on the Joker Pirates is insufficient and has been insufficient for years." Her gaze moved to where Brannew stood and then, deliberately, slightly past him to where Admiral Yashima Naraku sat. "The presentation is Brannew's work. The intelligence failure belongs to the department responsible for intelligence."
Naraku was already standing before she finished.
An intelligence director who stayed seated while his department was publicly criticized in the Marine's most important annual meeting would be communicating something about his department's adequacy that he had no intention of communicating.
"The clone network I operate required significant losses to obtain what I'm about to share," he said. The phrasing was exact — losses meaning clones, but the word carried weight in the room because everyone present understood what it cost to build and maintain an intelligence apparatus that functioned at Admiral-level environments. "Buggy the Clown's base is called Infinity Castle. It doesn't have a fixed location because it can't have one — a superhuman Devil Fruit user keeps it airborne and in constant motion over the sea. Finding it requires Admiral-level infiltration capacity, because anyone below that level cannot survive the approach long enough to transmit what they find."
He paused.
"I requested permission to conduct that infiltration personally. The Fleet Admiral's response was not a denial. It was not an approval." He left that there.
Several people in the hall processed what "the Fleet Admiral's response was tentative" implied about the status of that request and the relative priority of the Joker Pirates on the institution's current threat assessment.
"The Blackbeard Pirates are the more immediate concern," Kuzan said, from his seat. He was not standing — the format permitted seated commentary at this stage, and Kuzan had opinions about performance at the expense of content. "Teach has been harvesting Devil Fruits consistently for five years. His model is straightforward: acquire fruits, distribute them to subordinates who swear loyalty, expand the capability base of his crew through a mechanism that no one else on the sea can replicate. Every fruit he takes off the board is a fruit the Marine doesn't intercept and a person he potentially recruits."
He looked at the screen, where the Blackbeard Pirates' bounty still occupied one quarter.
"The cadre quality varies substantially. His early crew members have an advantage in familiarity and trust, not necessarily in combat capacity. But the rate of capability acquisition is accelerating, and the ceiling on what that crew can become is not visible yet. That is the threat."
Sakazuki's response was measured — genuinely considered rather than oppositional. "The Beasts Pirates have more consistent top-tier strength. The Five Calamities are a known quantity with a known floor. Blackbeard's crew has variance that makes it harder to plan against, but the Beasts Pirates' operational capacity right now is higher."
Neither position was wrong. The room understood this and allowed both to coexist.
Aramaki waited until the tactical exchange had established a rhythm, and then broke it.
"Speaking of junior brothers." He directed the comment at Kuzan with the specific precision of someone who has prepared this line and is deploying it at the calculated moment. "I've received intelligence that Coby — Hero of the Marine, Garp's former protégé — has established something resembling a cult on Beehive Island. Ritual consumption of believers. Proselytizing through pain. The harm profile is significant and growing." A pause. "Given your relationship with both Garp and the subject, Admiral Aokiji, I thought you might want to address it in this forum."
The hall temperature changed.
Not visibly. But the people in it understood what had just happened — a targeted attack using a personal connection as leverage, timed for maximum audience, directed at the faction's most prominent conservative voice. Aramaki had not arrived at this moment accidentally. This had been prepared.
Kuzan's expression did not change in any way that would give Aramaki something to work with.
Before he could respond, Admiral Gin's voice came from the opposite side of the room, carrying the specific quality of a counterattack that has been waiting for exactly this opening.
"The corruption investigation in Admiral Ryokugyū's department." Gin did not raise their voice. They did not need to. The content was the weapon, and the content was already moving through the room. "Documented cases. Embezzlement of operational funds. Misappropriation of supply logistics. I believe Admiral Aramaki has been managing that accountability process personally, which is an unusual arrangement. Would you like to speak to that, given we're speaking to things in this forum?"
Aramaki's response did not arrive in the form of words.
The salaries of the corrupt officials in his department had already been subject to sanction — a year's deduction for the Admiral himself was the formal record — but the conservatives had been watching the radical faction's internal housekeeping with the patient attention of people who understand that even the most aggressive cleaners leave something behind when they're cleaning their own space. Aramaki had sent the corrupt elements to the guillotine with Sakazuki's approval, which was ruthless and also convenient, and the conservatives had filed that away.
No handles, if possible. But every handle that exists, keep on record.
The contradiction between the two factions had long since passed the point where it could be managed through institutional courtesy. It had been managed through institutional courtesy anyway, because the meeting had not yet reached the agenda items that would require it to stop being managed that way.
Those agenda items were coming.
Artoria Pendragon, at the front of the room, had been watching all of this with the expression of someone who has counted exactly how many moves remain before the conversation has to be redirected, and is allowing the current moves to play out because letting people express the shape of their conflict in a controlled forum was preferable to having them express it in an uncontrolled one.
She was not yet intervening.
She was watching.
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