Kizaru's Beloved Disciple and the Truth He Missed

Ten days later.

North Blue Branch 19 Base.

A massive warship slowly sailed in from the south and anchored in the naval port.

Colonel Pieru, the commander of the 19th branch, and all the officers and soldiers of the branch stood respectfully on the dock in a line to welcome them.

They displayed their best spirit, standing ramrod straight like javelins.

"Yare yare~"

Amidst great anticipation, a tall man wearing yellow sunglasses, a yellow striped suit, and a cloak of justice stepped off the warship.

If it weren't for his sleazy appearance, he could be described as quite dashing.

"Admiral Kizaru!"

All officers and soldiers of the 19th branch raised their right hands to salute the visitors.

"Ah, ah, I really miss those days~"

Kizaru chuckled, took off his Justice Cloak, and tossed it to Pieru. "It's still the same here, nothing's changed~"

"Admiral Kizaru, we..."

"Alright, alright, let's talk about everything after afternoon tea~"

Kizaru blocked Pieru, who was trying to report on his work, and slowly walked towards his superior's office, scratching his head.

He knows that place very well.

Back when he was serving in the 10th Branch, Kizaru was often called there for reprimands.

Kizaru came to the North Blue as Marine Admiral mainly to handle a minor matter.

Not all incidents, regardless of their severity, were reported to the Sengoku for handling.

Otherwise, even if Sengoku was an iron man, he couldn't possibly handle so many emergencies around the world.

The unusual event that occurred in Flevance might be considered a major event in the North Blue, but for Marineford, it was just one of the hundreds of minor incidents that happen every year in various sea areas.

Hauntings have occurred countless times throughout the Grand Line, with the Florian Triangle being a well-known example.

However, this time it involved Flevance, and a naval captain appeared to be suspected of Amber Lead, as well as possession by a demon, so the matter was eventually reported to Akainu.

The person who orchestrated the assassination of Flevance was Akainu other than Vice Admiral Akainu.

However, Akainu has been busy establishing Rapid Response Force in Mary Geoise recently and hasn't been able to spare the time.

In fact, Darius is a newcomer whom Akainu greatly admires, and he even grooms him as his successor.

Even Akainu didn't expect that the Celestial Dragons would try to steal the fruits of others' labor.

To be honest, among the Three Admirals of the Navy, Akainu is indeed the one who is most obedient to the Celestial Dragons' orders and most committed to maintaining the current world order.

But this doesn't mean that Akainu holds nothing back from the Celestial Dragons.

He acknowledges the Celestial Dragons' rule and considers Celestial Dragons gods of the world, but this is not out of approval of their Celestial Dragons. Rather, as someone with a background in the underworld, he firmly believes that any order, even a terrifying one maintained by violence, is better than a chaotic and disorderly world.

A chaotic and disorderly world is the greatest harm to ordinary people.

Anything can be sacrificed to prevent such a thing from happening.

Flevance was one of them.

More than a decade has passed since the outbreak of Amber Lead disease, and its reappearance in the Navy's sphere of influence certainly warrants serious attention.

Kizaru was entrusted by his best friend to return to the North Blue to check if Flevance's Amber Lead disease had spread, and also to visit his hometown.

His entire Sakazuki died at the hands of pirates, leaving him with no ties. Kizaru Borsalino, however, has a family.

After all, he's called Second Uncle...

Listening to Pieru's report, Kizaru began to enjoy his afternoon tea.

"That..."

Kizaru pushed aside the expensive North Blue coffee that Pieru had meticulously prepared, rubbing his fingers together. "Don't you have that... you know... that sweet coffee that's bubbling and frothing?"

"Sweet coffee bubbling and gurgling?"

Pieru was stunned for a moment, wondering what this thing was.

Kizaru gestured for daylight, and Pieru suddenly Satori: "Oh, you mean cola... Ah, I understand, I'll go and have someone prepare it right away..."

Kizaru gave a lewd smile and nodded in satisfaction.

A moment later, the assistant brought over a large glass of cola.

Kizaru picked up the glass, took only one sip, and then spat it out violently.

"Admiral Kizaru, what's wrong? Is it not to your liking?"

Pieru wiped the cola stains off his face and quickly asked.

Kizaru wiped his mouth. "I said... don't you sell Big Bird Cola here?"

"What's that? I've never heard of it before," Pieru, full of doubt.

"It seems North Blue is still closed off..."

Kizaru sighed, "Forget afternoon tea, let's go check on that unfortunate guy..."

"Yes!"

Pieru noted down the name "Big Bird Cola," then led Kizaru to the 10th Branch's infirmary.

As a Marine Branch's medical room, the conditions here were quite rudimentary.

Kizaru frowned as he watched.

Because he, like Akainu, is a monster who knows nothing about injury or illness, he has never actually been to the infirmary.

Now it seems that conditions at the grassroots level are really tough; the medical facilities at Marine Headquarters are much more advanced than here.

In particular, Professor Zephyr recently introduced a contractor who carried out a complete renovation of the Marine Headquarters' medical facilities, making them not only more comfortable but also more modern.

Shaking his head, Kizaru suddenly had an idea.

Perhaps I don't need to slack off in my six-month work summary anymore; I can now highlight some truly meaningful achievements.

I thought about it for a while.

It's still too troublesome.

How could I, Borsalino, not become Salted Fish?

Kizaru shook his head, abandoning this crazy idea.

"Admiral Kizaru, please put on your protective suit!"

Pieru handed over a yellow, one-piece protective suit.

"No need for that." Kizaru shook his head.

"But... Captain Fullbody might have Amber Lead disease, which is a highly contagious disease!" Pieru said nervously.

Amber Lead disease is not contagious from person to person.

Kizaru shook his head. Although Flevance was the main person in charge of the Akainu back then, he and Akainu were both from the North Blue, and he had unusually shown concern for the plague in Flevance, worried that it might spread to his hometown.

Naturally, Kizaru also learned the truth of the matter.

Like a lazy person unwilling to wear a mask, Kizaru forcefully pushed Pieru aside and entered the ward.

"Dig inside~!"

Seeing Fullbody's skin turn pale and hiss incessantly, Kizaru frowned. "This doesn't seem like the symptoms of Amber Lead disease... Could it really be a ghost?"

"Ghosts?! Ah!! Don't come any closer!"

Seemingly having been touched on a sensitive word, Fullbody suddenly struggled and shrank towards the wall.

"Who was there at the time?" Kizaru asked.

"This..."

Pieru hesitated for a long time before finally answering truthfully. "Actually, there were many other navy personnel present at the time, and they all claimed to have seen ghosts. However, those ghosts did not attack them. Only when Captain Fullbody passed through a gray fog did the ghosts shriek and pursue him..."

"Why? Do these ghosts know this man?" Kizaru frowned.

"Uh... maybe only Captain Fullbody had blood on him at the time... he had been shot earlier..." Pieru explained.

"Shot? Was it those newbies who did it?"

During Pieru's report, Kizaru learned that several rookie pirates with bounties of tens or even hundreds of millions of taels of silver had been captured.

Although he was a little curious about how Branch 19 managed to do it, Kizaru didn't take it seriously since they were just some insignificant newcomers.

Upon hearing that Fullbody had been shot, he instinctively imagined that the guy had been shot while fighting pirates.

"Uh... no, it's said that Captain Caitlyn accidentally shot him..."

Pieru was still pondering how to tactfully explain the situation, but Kizaru's eyes lit up immediately upon hearing Caitlyn's name.

"That cute young lady is such a nice young woman!"

Kizaru stood up and stretched. "Anyway, no matter what, we won't get any answers without going to see for ourselves. By the way, is Miss Caitlyn still at the base?"

"Uh... she's on leave on Niu'er Island... a close friend came to visit her in the North Blue, and Captain Caitlyn took a week off. Oh, and by the way, her friend even signed up for this year's draft; actually, that girl is supposedly Colonel Garen's sister..."

Pieru replied.

Garen is now a powerful and influential captain within the Navy, Pieru thought to himself that Caitlyn was actually his sister's best friend.

My sister's best friend, isn't that similar to my sister-in-law?

It turns out Captain Caitlyn has Garen as her backer; no wonder she dares to challenge those guys like Fullbody.

Garen already has a lot of influence with Pieru.

However, compared to someone of Kizaru's caliber, he's still very inexperienced.

"So many pretty girls? Wow, I'm not letting Kuzan my examiner this year..."

Kizaru stretched and glanced at his watch. "Hmm, there's still plenty of time. I'll go invite the ladies to join me on an adventure in the Demon Sea!"

With that, Kizaru vanished before Pieru's eyes like a streak of light.

Several days later.

Garen, who was cracking down on a Donquixote Family drug trafficking ring in a certain sea area of Grand Line, received a phone call.

"Moses, Moses~"

"Excuse me, are you Garen?"

"Your sister is very good, extremely talented. I believe her understanding of light far surpasses that of ordinary people..."

"Ah, right, what I mean is, I want her to become my apprentice. You also want your sister to have a bright future in the Navy, right..."

"What? You're going to kill me? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a repressed pervert like Kuzan..."

"No, no, I promise Lux won't make a 'Kizaru' -like face~"

"Alright, alright, don't worry, I won't touch a hair on her head. Besides, if you really want to kill me, at least defeat Kuzan first. Goodbye~"

Hang up the phone.

Kizaru glanced at the Forbidden Sea shrouded in gray mist in the distance, scratched his head, and said to his beloved disciple, who was already wearing the Cloak of Justice behind him:

"Don't worry, this matter is closed. Marine Headquarters will no longer investigate the matter of you sisters and Twitch going too far in punishing your colleagues."

As Jianghu has seen it all, Kizaru may seem unreliable, but in reality, he guessed what was going on from Pieru's few words.

He used his swift movements to catch Caitlyn, who was trying to "defect," along with her two best friends.

After questioning, things turned out exactly as Kizaru had predicted.

Caitlyn did not accidentally injure Fullbody; rather, she was forced to preemptively attack her colleague in self-defense.

Furthermore, using Big Bird Company's latest miniature projection technology, they projected the so-called ghosts onto the gray smog.

Unexpectedly, this cowardly and weak guy, Fullbody, was actually scared into a mental breakdown by the ghost and lost his mind.

This changes the nature of the matter.

In short, this was an incident in which a junior female officer resisted a tyrant in the military, and her actions went too far, forcing her to cover it up with a series of lies.

As for Kizaru, he had absolutely no desire to get involved in such a melodramatic situation.

How the military court Judgment is none of his business.

Instead of wasting time on this, I'd rather hurry back to Marineford and relax on the sofa with a sparkling sweet coffee.

Kizaru has already heard that the Marineford canteen has introduced a new dish: miso soup with pork fat.

Anyway, ever since the cafeteria was taken over by the two old guys Garp and Zephyr, Kizaru's expectations for it have been growing day by day.

That's why he's so eager to close the case so he can return to Marineford as soon as possible.

He traveled from Branch 19 to the island where Caitlyn was located in a faster time than he did in the original story, traveling from Marineford to the Sabaody Archipelago to fight the Supernovas.

Furthermore, just like in the original work where he let the Supernovas go free, Kizaru intended to allow Caitlyn to defect.

However...

Lux's appearance suddenly changed his mind.

Kizaru almost instinctively sensed that Lux, the Radiant Lady, was the girl who possessed a well-mannered demeanor and a subtle aristocratic air, and was the disciple he was destined to be most compatible with.

Ambiguous Justice.

For Kizaru, helping the Celestial Dragons recapture slaves and suppress slave rebellions could be considered justice; capturing pirates and protecting civilians could be considered justice; and ruthlessly killing his mentor could also be considered justice.

Therefore, modifying the case file for the sake of one's beloved disciple is certainly a matter of justice!

"Let's go, Lux. You're destined to surpass your brother and become a legendary woman in the Navy."

Kizaru took one last look at the former "White Kingdom" shrouded in mist, and left without a trace of regret.

What he didn't know was that Lux looked back at the mist and smiled sweetly.

And in the mist, thousands of eyes watched her set sail.

Ma Qiao breathed a sigh of relief.

Ultimately, Kizaru, who refused to wear a protective suit, did not set foot on the Shadow Isles.

Otherwise, he would realize that the conclusion he had drawn in his mind was only half right, and only a very small part of it.

The ghosts are real.

The ghost is singing.

Ma Qiao chuckled, sat atop Tahm Kench's head, and headed towards the center of the Shadow Isles.

On the coast, besides Yorick, the Shepherd of Souls, searching along the shore for "mass graves" to reawaken the souls who died tragically under the World Government's enslavement, the awakened souls gathered together, singing songs praising their creator, Ma Qiao Yorick.

The lead singer of the ballad is another giant of the Shadow Isles: Karthus the Deathsinger.

His song echoed through the gray fog, warning every stray to leave quickly, like a death's admonition to the living...

The legend of the White Kingdom is fading into the distance, while the legend of the Kingdom of the Dead is just beginning.

This island, which was deliberately erased by the World Government and regarded as a forbidden place by the Navy, has been reborn in a different way.

No two.

The Shaomai were probably really too short.