—Real World—
"Peaceful enough, at the end," Kujaku said, looking at the Sky Screen. The image of herself crumbling apart at the rail of the medical ship was not comfortable to watch, but she watched it. "It's the thought of leaving people behind that stings. The crane having to live through that —" She didn't finish the sentence.
Grus, who was sitting on the table because he always sat on tables, had been turning something over since the Hibari section. He stroked his chin. He reviewed the relevant frames. He arrived at a conclusion that genuinely surprised him.
"Hibari," he said, "did you have something going on with Helmeppo?"
Hibari's expression made the answer clear without words.
"That look at the end," Kujaku said. She had recovered from the grief faster than she'd expected, which she suspected said something unflattering about her personality. "The hesitation. The things you couldn't say." She tilted her head. "My heart broke for you a little."
"I don't even know him now," Hibari said. "It's not — I haven't —"
"The Sky Screen isn't going to explain it further," Grus said. "They're not the protagonists. The story doesn't follow side romances." He paused. "But for what it's worth, the bald man clearly never figured it out. Right up to the end."
Hibari did not find this comforting.
The Drake situation resolved itself, in the real world, the way it had to.
The Sky Screen had exposed him in front of everyone. His crew had learned simultaneously with everyone else and had responded the way crews respond when they find out their captain was a lie. Drake had put them down efficiently and without sentiment, tied them off, and handed them to his Marine colleagues.
He returned to SWORD. Grus stepped back to vice-captain. The unit absorbed the restructuring without much discussion — this was what they were.
The Five Elders were less philosophical about it.
The World Government's intelligence assets inside Wano passed the existence and activities of SWORD up through the proper channels, and the Five Elders issued their opinion to the Fleet Admiral directly: an armed force operating independently of World Government oversight would not be recognized, would not be tolerated, and needed to either dissolve or become something that had a different name and a different accountability structure. The Celestial Dragons had invested enormously in the Wano operation and had received losses in return. The Marine's parallel operation inside those losses was not something they were inclined to ignore.
The Fleet Admiral received the criticism. SWORD would need to adapt its structure and wait for the attention to move elsewhere.
It would.
Kaido had the Sky Screen's account of Orochi's eight forms and had been turning it over in his mind for several days.
Half believing, half not. The Yamata no Orochi fruit — if what the broadcast had shown was genuine capability and not constructed narrative — put Orochi in a category that Kaido hadn't accounted for. A category that, if real, changed the calculation on several things he'd been operating as settled.
The safest approach was to test it.
He couldn't go himself. He had his awakening, but he hadn't yet achieved full command of the Nika power — it was there, accessible in moments, but not yet something he could rely on completely at need. If Orochi at the Eighth Form could actually match what the broadcast had shown, a fight without that certainty was a fight Kaido wasn't willing to risk for the sake of satisfying his own curiosity. One percent odds of losing was one percent too many when the stakes were this particular.
He needed someone to go in his place. Someone capable enough to read the situation accurately. Someone fearless enough to not hesitate in front of whatever Orochi actually was.
Jack had volunteered before Kaido finished describing the mission.
The remaining Tobiroppō gathered at a railing on Onigashima's upper levels and watched Jack's ship cross toward Wano Country.
Who's-Who, still carrying the marks of a recent argument, held his existing position: "The Sky Screen is manipulating all of you. That thing up there plays games. Don't fall for it."
Nobody responded to this with particular enthusiasm. Who's-Who was aware of exactly why his credibility was limited right now, and chose not to press the point.
The general opinion — unvoiced but shared — was that Jack was probably going to anger Kurozumi Orochi, and that this was probably going to be interesting to watch from a safe distance.
—Real World — Wano Country, Shogun's Mansion—
The afternoon was pleasant by Wano standards. Kurozumi Orochi had not thought about anything practical in several hours, which was his preferred state. Komurasaki was peeling grapes. Someone was playing a string instrument in the adjacent room. The sake was good.
Fukurokuju pushed through the entrance looking like he'd seen something he hadn't prepared himself for.
"General. Jack the Drought —" He didn't finish. There was a loud impact from the direction of the outer gate, followed by a series of louder ones, getting closer with the rhythm of something very large moving very fast through spaces that were not designed for it.
The door behind Fukurokuju came off its hinges.
The mammoth was the size of a small building. Its Zou Zou no Mi, Model: Mammoth form filled the corridor, the walls cracking outward at the pressure of its passage, the decorative pillars of the entrance hall hitting the floor one after another as it forced through. Fukurokuju, who had been in Wano Country's service for longer than most people's lifespans and had survived many things, was hit by the leading edge of the momentum and went into a wall. The beam he hit stopped him. Several things in him did not survive the stop intact. He remained in the beam, which was doing the work his bones were no longer able to do.
The mammoth didn't spare him a second glance.
The attendants in the main hall scattered. The serving women ran. Everyone who had a direction ran in it.
Komurasaki moved to a corner of the room, her expression suggesting she was calculating distances and exits.
Jack reverted to his human form in the center of the hall, the reddish-brown mass of mammoth hide folding back into the frame of a man who was very large by human standards and still somehow looked smaller than the space he'd just used. He looked at the only two people remaining in the room.
"Kurozumi Orochi," he said. "You put on quite a show in the Sky Screen. The Beasts Pirates wanted to say hello."