Chapter 200: A Bounty of 3.5 Billion!
"Oh dear... this is truly..."
The voice drifted through the tense, suffocating air of the Fleet Admiral's office, carrying a slow, aggravatingly casual drawl.
The Marine Admiral known as "Kizaru," Borsalino, was leaning against a plush leather sofa in an extremely awkward, boneless posture. His long legs were casually draped over the armrest, and both of his hands were tucked deeply into the pockets of his signature yellow striped suit.
His face wore that perpetually ambiguous expression behind his tinted glasses. It made it absolutely impossible to tell whether he was being deeply mocking, genuinely surprised, or just entirely too lazy to care.
He spoke with a slow, drawn-out rhythm, treating the apocalyptic military report as if he were discussing some trivial, faraway gossip that had absolutely nothing to do with him.
"Ara ara... isn't that just great?" Kizaru mused, tilting his head back to stare at the ornate ceiling.
"The higher-ups said we don't need to handle the most troublesome matter in the world right now. That means we can work a lot less overtime. I was really starting to worry about my beauty sleep."
He paused, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.
"But still, to think that even that Beast Kaido was completely taken out. The strongest creature in the world, dead just like that. It's so... scary."
That final "so scary" of his was drawn out long and airy, lacking even a single ounce of genuine terror.
Combined with his highly punchable, relaxed expression, it didn't sound like fear so much as it sounded like he was watching a magnificent, highly entertaining play from the best seat in the house. In fact, his tone even carried a faint hint of anticipation, like a man who simply wanted to sit back and watch the entire world burn from a safe distance.
Across the room, the temperature was rising at an alarming, unnatural rate.
The blue veins on Admiral Akainu's forehead throbbed so violently they looked ready to burst through his skin. His fists were clenched tight enough to crush solid diamond.
The air around Sakazuki was literally shimmering with intense heat, and a faint, acrid smell of sulfur began to permeate the immaculate office. He was almost on the absolute verge of turning his volcanic fury toward his sarcastic, infuriating colleague.
"Enough, Sakazuki."
Fleet Admiral Sengoku finally spoke, his voice heavy with an exhaustion that seemed to penetrate straight to his bones.
He didn't look up from his desk. He didn't even look at the cracked mahogany table beneath his hands, a result of him slamming his own fists down just minutes prior. He merely raised a trembling hand and rubbed his brow tiredly.
This once high-spirited, invincible Fleet Admiral of the Marines now looked as if he had aged a full ten years in a single instant.
His legendary seagull hat sat slightly askew on his graying hair. It was as if the physical weight of the entire ocean, and all its chaotic, bloody history, was pressing down squarely on his broad shoulders.
"This is not a suggestion. This is the highest, absolute directive from 'above' that Commander-in-Chief Kong just personally delivered to me."
Sengoku let out a long, shuddering sigh.
That sigh was filled with a profound powerlessness and a deep, gnawing confusion regarding the shifting tides of the world. But even more than that, it was filled with a bitter, inescapable sense of involuntary obedience.
"Since it is a direct order from 'above', all we can do as Marines is lower our heads and follow it."
"Above."
"Above."
Hearing this single, heavily loaded word repeated, the raging, magma-hot fire in Sakazuki's chest didn't extinguish. Instead, it felt as if a massive bucket of freezing ice water had been violently poured directly over his heart.
The flames didn't die. They transformed.
The explosive, outward anger compressed inward, transforming into a much more suppressed, incredibly cold, and far more dangerous rage.
Sakazuki knew exactly what Sengoku meant. He knew that the "above" Sengoku spoke of was not just Steel Bone Kong, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
It was those five ancient individuals representing the absolute pinnacle of the World Government, sitting high up in the pristine, untouchable clouds of the Holy Land, Mary Geoise.
That was the absolute, unquestionable authority of the World Government. The gods of this world.
Defy the express will of the World Government?
Even Sakazuki, a man whose entire philosophy revolved around the ruthless, uncompromising execution of Absolute Justice, had never once entertained such a genuinely mad thought. His justice was violent, but it was bound by the chains of the system he served.
"..."
He stood there, frozen like a statue of compressed volcanic rock.
He stared fixedly at Sengoku's bowed head, his dark eyes burning with an unholy fury that could have melted the very walls of the fortress. His jaw was locked tight, his teeth grinding together so hard they made a sickening, audible scraping sound.
In the end, he said nothing.
All words, all protests, all demands for immediate retaliation seemed completely pale and entirely powerless at this exact moment.
He turned abruptly on his heel.
Sakazuki carried a violent, suffocating aura capable of melting solid steel as he strode heavily toward the office door. Every step he took left a faint, scorching black footprint on the expensive carpeting.
He yanked the heavy, reinforced oak door open with enough force to tear it from its hinges. He stepped through the frame and slammed it shut behind him with a massive, thunderous thud, violently venting his immense frustration on the inanimate object.
Bang!
The deafening sound echoed down the hallway, and the entire Fleet Admiral's office violently shook as if hit by a minor earthquake. Dust fell from the ornate ceiling fixtures.
Silence, thick and oppressive, fell over the office once again.
On the sofa, Kizaru merely curled his lip in profound boredom, picking at his fingernails as if a volcano hadn't just erupted and left the room.
Sengoku slowly raised his head. He looked at the heavy door, which was still visibly vibrating in its frame, and let out another completely helpless, long sigh that seemed to drain the last of his vitality.
Just then, a steady, incredibly clear voice cut through the lingering tension.
It sounded like a cool, trickling stream washing over scorching stones, instantly soothing the agitated, heated air left behind by Akainu.
"Sengoku."
The Great Staff Officer of Marineford, "Tsuru," finally spoke up.
She had been standing quietly off to the side by the large observation window the entire time, observing the clash of ideals like a completely detached outsider analyzing a chessboard.
She slowly stepped forward, the medals on her crisp Marine coat clinking faintly.
On her deeply wrinkled face, she maintained an absolute, terrifying calm. It was the calm of a legendary tactician who had seen through the fog of war and grasped the underlying truth of everything.
She fixed her sharp gaze on the profound helplessness and fatigue etched deeply into Sengoku's face.
"The explicit order from 'above' only tells us one specific thing," Tsuru said calmly, her voice carrying a steady, unyielding rhythm. "It merely dictates that we are not to launch any direct military operations against Wano Country."
Sengoku looked up at this old friend, a woman he had worked alongside for decades through countless crises. A sudden flash of genuine confusion flickered in his dark, tired eyes.
Tsuru did not leave him waiting. She continued calmly, her mind already several steps ahead of the World Government's cowardly mandate.
"But the order didn't say anything else, did it? It never explicitly stated... that we aren't allowed to issue new 'Bounty Posters'."
!!!
Sengoku was visibly startled. His back straightened involuntarily in his chair.
Then, a sharp, incredibly intense light reignited in his previously dimmed eyes!
Right! She was absolutely right!
The Gorosei had forbidden them from sending fleets into the meat grinder of Wano. They were not allowed to fight Suzaku directly. But they had absolutely never said the Marines couldn't officially evaluate the threat level and set a 'price' on his head!
"With an incident of this unimaginable magnitude, the eyes of the entire world are completely focused on the New World right now," Tsuru continued unhurriedly, pacing slowly before the desk.
"The consecutive, brutal defeats of Kaido and Red Hair... especially Kaido's confirmed death! There is absolutely no way to hide it from the underground brokers or the public."
She stopped pacing and looked Sengoku dead in the eye.
"Instead of letting wild rumors fly everywhere, instead of letting the millions of pirates across the world think the Government is weak, terrified, and easily bullied into submission, why not take control of the narrative?"
She paused, allowing the weight of her tactical brilliance to settle in the room. Her words became incredibly clear, deliberate, and sharp as a scalpel.
"...Have our Marine Headquarters officially set a 'price' for the protagonist of this bloody feast."
Tsuru's eyes gleamed with a cold, calculating light.
"Let the whole world see exactly what kind of terrifying 'prestige' is required to topple two Emperors in a single day. Make him a target for every greedy, ambitious fool on the seas."
Sengoku stared at Tsuru for a long, silent moment. Those wise, ancient eyes of hers seemed to have effortlessly foreseen everything, manipulating the board without ever moving a single piece.
He nodded heavily, his previous despair entirely replaced by grim determination.
"I understand perfectly, Tsuru."
Indeed. She was completely right.
Direct military action was strictly prohibited by the gods of this world, but the vicious, invisible battlefield of public opinion and information warfare had only just begun!
"Coo...! Coo...! Big news! The absolute big news of the century!"
High above the endless blue expanse of the oceans, an unprecedented "news storm" violently erupted.
Accompanied by the News Coo's signature, high-energy hawking and the frantic flapping of millions of wings, a massive flock of delivery birds blotted out the sun.
Centering on the printing presses near Marineford, this massive avian wave swept frantically outward in every single direction. It crossed the Calm Belts, sweeping toward the peaceful Four Seas, and plunged deep into the chaotic, unpredictable weather of the Grand Line!
Countless freshly printed newspapers, all bearing the proud, avian logo of Morgans, the President of the World Economy News Paper, rained down from the heavens.
They fell from the sky like an endless barrage of black and white snowflakes.
They landed precisely on the pristine decks of patrolling Marine warships. They fluttered into the bustling, cobbled plazas of allied kingdoms. They dropped right beneath the massive main masts of ruthless pirate ships sailing the treacherous waters.
And finally, they drifted down among the beautiful, floating multicolored bubbles of the lawless Sabaody Archipelago.
On this specific day, the entire world was violently shaken to its very core by the big news.
Bold, massive black ink screamed from the front pages, impossible to ignore.
[The Fall of the Emperors! Beast Kaido and Red-Haired Shanks, Both Utterly Defeated in a Single Day!]
[The Unbelievable Death of New World Emperor Kaido? The Protagonist of the New Era—The Suzaku Pirates!]
And below the shocking headlines, a massive, crystal-clear photograph of a handsome, confident young man with black hair, accompanied by a string of zeros that made people dizzy.
[Captain "Suzaku" Suzaku Yareon, Bounty—3.5 Billion Berries!]
In the notorious Sabaody Archipelago.
Deep within Grove 13, inside one of the many dimly lit, smoke-filled outlaw bars, the usual tense, threatening atmosphere was entirely shattered.
The mountain-shaking clamor that suddenly erupted inside the tavern broke the area's relative silence for the first time in weeks. It wasn't the sound of a drunken brawl; it was the sound of pure, unadulterated mass hysteria.
"Hey! Hey! Did you hear what that bird just dropped?! You've got to be absolutely kidding me!"
A massive pirate with a scarred face slammed his fist down onto a sticky wooden table, spilling cheap rum everywhere. His eyes were bulging out of his skull as he stared at the paper in his trembling hands.
"Lies! It's complete bullshit!" Another heavily armed thug shouted from across the room, aggressively waving his cutlass in the air. "This must be a cheap, desperate stunt by that stupid bird Morgans to boost his paper sales!"
He laughed nervously, a bead of cold sweat rolling down his dirty cheek. "How the hell could an invincible Emperor of the Sea be defeated, let alone killed by some rookie?!"
"But... but the newspaper says it so vividly!" A scrawnier pirate countered, his voice cracking several octaves in sheer panic. "It details the whole thing! Both the mighty Beasts Pirates and the Red Hair Pirates were crushed!"
"The Suzaku Pirates?" A bounty hunter sitting by the bar muttered, rubbing his stubbled chin in deep thought. "That name... why does that name sound so familiar? I swear I've heard it recently!"
Suddenly, a fellow pirate who had just rushed in from the dusty street outside pushed his way into the center of the tavern.
He was tightly clutching a crumpled newspaper to his chest. His face was flushed a deep, unhealthy red, torn entirely between wild excitement and paralyzing fear.
"I remember now! I know exactly who they are!" the newcomer screamed, his voice cutting through the chaotic din of the bar. "It's that insane group! The ones that caused a massive, fiery scene at Grove 9 just a little while back!"
He gasped for air, his eyes wide with disbelief. "They're the maniacs who fought and successfully escaped from a Marine Admiral right here on this island!"
"Yes, yes, yes! Holy crap, I remember too!"
Another pirate sitting near the window violently slapped his own thigh in realization. "The massive explosion back then made the entire damn island shake like a leaf! It felt like the ground was splitting open!"
He quickly stood up, his chest puffing out as he decided to seize the moment to look tough. He lowered his voice conspiratorially, bragging loudly to his stunned companions.
"Hmph, you guys probably won't believe it, but I was actually on the neighboring island at the exact time of the incident! I saw those soaring, terrifying flames with my own two eyes!"
He took a dramatic swig of his beer. "That scene, tsk tsk... the heat was melting the very air. But I stood my ground, watching the whole clash unfold without blinking!"
Before he could even finish his heroic, fabricated tale, a much larger pirate sitting directly next to him rolled his eyes completely mercilessly.
Without hesitation, he reached out and violently slapped the back of the braggart's head.
Smack!
"Quit your damn bragging, Nora!" the larger pirate yelled, exposing the lie instantly. "Hook told me exactly what happened that day! He said that as soon as the first explosion sounded over at Grove 9, you were so terrified you immediately dove straight under the card table!"
The tavern erupted into brief, nervous snickers.
"He said you were shaking like a newborn leaf in a hurricane," the larger pirate continued ruthlessly, "and that your pants were completely soaked afterward!"
"What?!"
The pirate named Nora instantly turned beet red in the face. His heroic facade completely shattered, he jumped up from his stool in overwhelming embarrassment and intense anger.
"Hook! You backstabbing bastard!" Nora screamed, scanning the room frantically for the snitch. "Didn't you swear on your mother's grave never to mention the wet pan—no! I mean, the 'spilled drink' incident!"
Somewhere in the back of the room, a scrawny man holding a mug of ale flinched, shrinking down into his seat.
"I didn't mean to tell him, Nora!" Hook whined defensively. "I drank way too much rum last time and it just kind of slipped out of my mouth..."
"I'll kill you!"
The two ridiculous clowns instantly began chasing each other around the crowded tables, knocking over chairs and spilling drinks, eventually tumbling out the swinging doors of the bar and leaving behind a loud burst of mocking laughter.
For a brief, fleeting moment, the terrifying reality of the world's changing era was overshadowed by typical pirate stupidity.
However, amidst the roaring laughter, the shouting, and the chaotic farce playing out in the tavern, no one noticed the quietest presence in the room.
In the darkest corner of the bar, far away from the chaotic center, an old man who had been quietly, methodically drinking his liquor had put down his glass at some point.
His silver hair was tied back, and round glasses sat upon his face.
When that little, frantic pirate had rushed in earlier screaming about Grove 9, he had accidentally dropped a spare copy of the newspaper onto the old man's table. The paper still carried the sharp, distinct smell of fresh ink from the printing presses.
Silvers Rayleigh, the Dark King, sat in complete silence.
His calm, deeply experienced gaze fell directly upon the young, wildly confident, and smiling face that occupied the entire front page of the world's most important document.
[Akarin Note:
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