Lazy Justice

Several days later, Marineford.

Click.

An Air Door opened out of thin air beside a corridor, and Ron stepped out carrying several bulging bags of North Blue candy. A faint pattern from a port town's candy shop was printed on the paper bags.

"Big Brother Ron!"

Hibari, who had been crouching around the corner waiting for him, came pattering over. Her eyes instantly locked onto the bags in his hands, shining as though they were glowing.

"My candy!"

Ron raised the candy over his head and teased her, "Call me big brother."

"Big Brother Ron! The most handsome big brother in all of Headquarters!"

"Tsk, how practical."

Ron laughed and handed her the bags, straightening the Marine cap that had slipped crooked as she ran.

"What about Big Brother Rosinante's?" Hibari asked, looking up with the bags in her arms.

"He owes you. He can make it up to you himself when he gets back."

Hibari hugged the bags tight, her eyes curving into crescents as she smiled. She counted the bags in her arms. "You brought me three bags?"

"One is for the man in the mess hall. If you dare take it, he won't give you extra pudding tonight."

Hibari immediately tucked her little hands behind her back and shook her head like a rattle drum.

The Headquarters training ground.

Ron had just walked over from the office area when he saw that the entire training ground was covered in a thin layer of white frost.

Several recruits staggered across the ice, their feet slipping as they shoved one another and laughed together.

A tall, curly-haired man was sprawled on a bench beneath the shade of a tree.

A sleep mask covered his face, and he was sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling gently with each breath.

Kuzan.

A Headquarters Vice Admiral like the other two, he had joined the Marines later than Sakazuki and Borsalino. Yet, thanks to the Ice-Ice Fruit and his formidable strength, he and the other two Logia users were known as the "three great disaster monsters."

Magma, light, and ice: the Marines' three sharpest blades.

Kuzan had once been far more driven than he was now, always speaking of "burning justice," until that incident five years ago...

Ron walked over and kicked the leg of the bench.

"Vice Admiral Kuzan."

No response.

He kicked it again, his voice even. "There's a fire."

Whoosh!

Kuzan yanked up his sleep mask and sat bolt upright. "Where?!"

When he saw it was Ron, his face fell, and he slumped back down with a huge yawn. "Oh, la la... it's Sakazuki's troublesome brat."

"Pretty quick reaction." Ron laughed.

Kuzan rubbed his eyes and leaned back against the bench again. "I heard you beat up Doflamingo? And wiped out the Black Whale Pirates, too."

"Word travels that fast? It was nothing."

"Nothing?"

Kuzan lifted one side of his sleep mask and gave him a sidelong look. "A captain with a bounty of 310 million, and you call that nothing?"

"I couldn't exactly write in my report that I fought a grueling battle for three days and three nights, could I?"

"...Fair enough."

Kuzan's gaze drifted toward the training ground, where the recruits had fallen into a heap again. Their laughter carried over to him.

But he didn't laugh. "Those Black Whale pirates," he asked softly, "are they all dead?"

"Yeah."

"You really do hate pirates."

"Yeah."

"You're like Sakazuki in that respect."

"I don't think so."

Kuzan looked up. "How are you different?"

Ron looked at him and spoke quietly. "He believes in orders. I don't."

They both fell silent.

Just then, Kuzan seemed to remember something and suddenly asked, "What if someone sailed under a pirate flag but hadn't killed anyone yet?"

"If they dare fly that flag, they should understand what path they've chosen."

Ron shrugged. "It's not as if you need to fly a skull flag to sail these seas."

Kuzan watched him for a while before murmuring, "Is that so..."

"But you..."

Ron asked in return, "When did you start asking questions like 'should they be killed' all the time?"

At that, the laziness on Kuzan's face faded somewhat.

On the training ground, another recruit slipped and fell on the ice, drawing a burst of laughter from those around him.

He watched those lively young faces, but his gaze drifted somewhere far away.

"Ron, if one day the government says a group of people deserves to die, what will you do?"

"First, I'll see what they've done."

"What about orders?"

"Orders are orders. If I don't want to do something, nobody can make me."

Kuzan froze for a moment, then chuckled. "Whatever you do, don't say that in Mary Geoise."

"Why? Did you learn that the hard way?"

Kuzan was silent for a few seconds. "You could say that," he said softly.

Ron didn't press him.

He remembered how Sakazuki had shut himself in his office reviewing paperwork for days after returning to Headquarters back then, without saying a word to explain the bombardment.

Kuzan hadn't come to argue with him either. The two former friends had carried out their missions as usual, but they had never sat down at the same table for a drink again.

That burning island stood between them. They both knew it, and neither mentioned it.

"Sometimes you're still too ruthless."

"And sometimes you're too soft."

They exchanged a glance and smiled.

"Forget it."

"Forget it."

Ron turned to leave.

Kuzan's voice came from behind him again, muffled now that he had pulled his sleep mask back down.

"Ron."

"Yeah?"

"Sometimes orders are just orders. Don't be so quick to take them for justice."

Ron paused briefly, but didn't turn around.

"I've always known that."

Two years passed in the blink of an eye.

Sea Circle Calendar, year 1507.

Ron was seventeen, and the major's rank on his shoulders had been replaced by that of rear admiral.

A name began to circulate among pirates: Monster Rear Admiral.

Under the training of Zephyr and the many experts at Headquarters, his Haki and abilities grew more refined with each passing year.

He had gone through two adjutants, but Vergo was still serving diligently aboard his ship.

He trained every day, organized case files, and reported on his work. There wasn't a fault to be found in him; he was the very image of a model Marine.

Every so often, Ron even praised him. "Good work."

Each time, Vergo stood at attention and saluted, though a layer of cold sweat always broke out on his back.

The information he secretly passed along grew scarcer, and he kept finding that Ron had "just happened" to avoid that so-called "important information."

Vergo no longer dared think too deeply about who was monitoring whom.

Meanwhile, the Donquixote Family gradually curtailed its overt activities.

Doflamingo began having his cargo ships change flags and dispersing his account books, quietly moving his business to the New World.

Kaido of the Beasts' name came up more and more often over drinks among underworld merchants.

Fish-Man Island.

On a street in Coral Square, Queen Otohime stood in the sunlight, holding a large signature board.

"Please support the Fish-Man Race's relocation to land!"

Her voice was a little weary, but clear. "As long as we work together, our children will have a chance to live under the real sun!"

Some people stepped forward to sign their names, while others tore up the paper right in front of her.

"Humans will only capture us and make us slaves!"

"Wake up, Your Majesty!"

Scraps of paper drifted all over the ground.

Otohime bent down, picked them up one by one, and brushed the dust off them, paying no mind to the coral powder that rubbed onto her knees.

The next day, she stood in the same place again, holding fresh signature sheets.

One signature, ten, a hundred...

More and more people signed, but the voices of opposition never stopped.

Elsewhere on the same island, at another port.

Fisher Tiger had returned from his travels.

His old companions gathered around, vying to embrace the legendary adventurer and asking where he had been all these years and whether he had seen the sun on the surface.

Fisher Tiger smiled and answered each of them, but his clothes remained wrapped tightly around him, and no one saw the slave brand seared into the bone on his back.

Late that night, he met with Neptune alone.

"There are still people up in the Holy Land."

His voice was hoarse. "A lot of people..."

Neptune's expression darkened little by little.

"I'm going back."

"Back to Mary Geoise?" Neptune's voice changed. "You know what that place is!"

"I know."

Fisher Tiger raised his head, his eyes frighteningly bright.

"This time, I'm not running away."

The North Blue.

Flevance, the white town, had long since been reduced to ruins.

When Amber Lead Syndrome was falsely branded an infectious disease by the outside world, the surrounding countries sent troops to blockade and slaughter the town in the name of "self-defense."

The town that had once been as white as paper was ultimately burned to scorched earth in the fighting.

Trafalgar Law's parents and his younger sister Lami had all died in that conflict.

He had escaped across the border by hiding among the corpses, becoming the town's sole survivor.

The royal family had evacuated early, while the World Government had made a fortune from the Amber Lead trade and then covered up the entire truth itself.

Ten-year-old Law was covered in dust, and patches of mottled white showed beneath his sleeves.

Amber Lead Syndrome was eating away at his body, and at the light in his eyes.

Clutching a small knife, he burst into the Donquixote Family's territory.

"I'm going to destroy this world."

He held his head high, his eyes filled with a cold hatred beyond his years.

Doflamingo sat atop a pile of rocks, looking into those eyes, and suddenly smiled.

"Fuffuffu... I like that look in your eyes."

Rosinante stood nearby. His gaze fell on the white patches on the back of the child's hand, and his body went rigid.

This child... is dying.

Some time later, at the foot of the Red Line.

The night was dark as ink.

Fisher Tiger stood alone in the waves, the tide reaching his waist.

He looked up at the towering red wall that rose into the clouds, seemingly without end.

At the top was the Holy Land Mary Geoise.

There were chains there, cages, and countless of his people who would never live to see the dawn.

Fisher Tiger took a deep breath, removed his coat, and tossed it into the sea.

The brand on his back stood out clearly in the moonlight, a mark that would never be erased for the rest of his life.

He gripped the rough rock face with both hands, digging his fingertips into its cracks.

Step by step.

His head lowered, he bore the scars all over his body and his anger on his back.

He climbed toward that hell on earth.