The atmosphere in Commodore Gion's office was strange.
An adjutant led Smoker into the room next door and shut the heavy wooden door behind him.
Thud.
With that dull sound, the office sank into an almost unbearable silence. The only sounds left were the tick-tock of the wall clock and the faint tapping of Gion's finger against the desk.
Smoker had been taken to another room. They called it "separate questioning to prevent the stories from matching."
Gion sat behind her large desk with her hands folded, wearing a serious, professional expression. Her eyes, which usually carried a faintly lazy look, were now sharp as blades as they locked onto Aiden.
"Sergeant Aiden," she said coldly, her voice stripped of all personal feeling. "Sit."
Aiden, however, acted as if he did not feel the pressure at all.
He walked over to the sofa in the guest area and sat down as if he owned the place. He even picked up the teapot on Gion's desk and poured himself a cup of still-warm black tea.
Seeing how casually he took control of the room, Gion's brows tightened slightly, but she did not lose her temper.
She cleared her throat and went straight to the point. "Alright, Aiden. Report everything that happened during your disappearance. Start from Ohara, and leave nothing out."
"Yes, Commodore."
Aiden took a sip of tea to wet his throat, then began reciting the story he and Smoker had already agreed on.
"...That's what happened."
Aiden calmly told the story of their "narrow escape."
He described in detail how the two of them had been completely overpowered by Arise's terrifying strength, how they had been captured and taken to an unknown island, and how they had spent their time looking for a chance to escape.
Finally, he ended in a tone of relief, as though he had barely survived a disaster. "On the way out, we ran into one life-and-death situation after another. In the end, by sheer luck, we found and ate a Devil Fruit out in the wild. That's how I ended up with lightning powers and managed to get Smoker out with me."
After Aiden finished, he held his teacup and looked at Gion calmly, waiting for her reaction.
Gion listened to the whole report without a trace of expression.
She did not press him about Arise, and she did not ask for details about the Devil Fruit either.
She simply used two slender fingers to slowly push the newspaper on the desk toward Aiden.
The paper slid across the smooth desktop and stopped right beside Aiden's teacup.
"You just said you gained the power of lightning," Gion said in an icy voice.
"So, do you have any explanation for this?"
Her finger tapped lightly against the shocking front-page headline: ["Thunder God" Appears? Five Hundred Pirates Erased Instantly in Mock Town!]
She looked up. Her eyes were full of pressure. "Did you do this?"
"Ah, this."
Aiden looked at the newspaper and smiled.
He set down his teacup and leaned back against the sofa. He no longer bothered hiding anything. Meeting Gion's sharp gaze head-on, he nodded without directly admitting it. "They attacked Marines. I'm a Marine. I destroyed the pirates. That's normal, isn't it?"
"Normal?!"
Gion's voice jumped up at once!
She shot to her feet and braced both hands against the desk as she leaned forward. Her eyes were full of shock and disbelief.
"Like hell that's normal! Do you even understand what you've done?! That was more than five hundred pirates!"
Gion was so angry that her chest rose and fell sharply. "You wiped out that many pirates in one go. Some of them may not even have deserved to die! Once you return, who knows how many complaints are going to be filed against you!"
She came around the desk and stopped right in front of Aiden, looking down at him.
"And how could you... wipe out that many pirates at once?!"
Aiden looked at her and smiled.
He calmly raised his right hand.
Sizzle.
His entire right hand turned into a mass of dazzling blue lightning.
Gion's questioning stopped on the spot. This was elemental transformation, the unmistakable sign of a Logia user.
She stared blankly at the lightning dancing in his hand, then slowly looked back at the words "Thunder God" on the newspaper. The expression on her face grew complicated.
The authority of a Commodore had disappeared from her voice. What replaced it was an annoyed tone she could not hide. "Your luck really is ridiculous... to actually end up with a Logia fruit..."
"Now," she bit her lip and nearly forced the words out through clenched teeth, "aren't you already stronger than me, your instructor?"
Aiden looked at the complicated look on her face and stood up instead.
He was now a full head taller than Gion.
The distance between them disappeared in an instant. At that range, Aiden could even catch the faint scent on her, mixed with the sea breeze and something soft and floral.
For Gion, looking down suddenly turned into looking up.
Caught off guard by the pressure of him stepping in so suddenly, Gion instinctively tried to step back, only to realize she was already pressed against the back of the sofa.
"Commodore, you've got it wrong."
Aiden smiled at her, looking completely sincere. At that distance, his dark eyes looked unusually bright.
"Got it wrong?" Gion's heart skipped a beat for no reason.
"The strength I have today," Aiden said in a sincere tone, "is all thanks to your training."
"If it weren't for those six months of brutal training with you that built my foundation, then even if I'd eaten the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, I wouldn't have gotten this far."
He looked straight into Gion's slightly widened eyes and said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, "So isn't all of this thanks to you?"
"You...!!"
Gion's face flushed red at his twisted logic.
Was he praising her, or messing with her?
Thump!
Half embarrassed and half annoyed, she suddenly rose onto her toes and lightly smacked his forehead with the side of her hand.
"No talking your way out of this!"
She snapped at him, then took the chance to push him back and quickly stepped away to put some distance between them.
Gion turned around, showing Aiden her back as she tried to calm the heartbeat she could no longer control.
By the time she turned back, the color had faded from her face. In its place was the seriousness of a Marine Commodore.
"Because of what you did this time, you're going to become a nightmare to pirates all over the sea..."
Her voice grew firm. "But at the same time, you'll also become a target. Once word of what happened in Mock Town spreads, who knows how many fools will come after you, hoping to kill you and make a name for themselves."
Aiden rubbed the spot on his forehead where she had hit him. The smile on his face faded as well.
He looked at Gion calmly. "It doesn't matter, Commodore. Let them come."
"You're right. I'll become the deepest nightmare every pirate fears. If even one pirate in this world is too afraid of me to commit a crime..."
"If my existence can save even one village from being burned down by pirates..."
He met Gion's eyes, which were once again filled with shock, and said each word clearly, "Then I think it's worth it."
Gion was completely stunned.
She stared blankly at the man standing in front of her.
His sense of justice...
It was fierce and overwhelming.
The office fell into a long silence. Gion could even hear her own heartbeat, still a little out of control.
Ring-ring-ring-ring! Ring-ring-ring-ring!
The encrypted Transponder Snail on the desk suddenly rang sharply, breaking the almost intimate atmosphere.
"...You."
Gion finally looked away. She slowly turned around, using her back to hide the composure she still could not fully recover.
"Do you know that what you just said... was actually pretty cool?"