Ohara's Flames

The words hung on the Sky Screen, and the temperature across the world seemed to drop.

[One of the Marines' hidden crimes: Twenty-two years ago, at the World Government's behest, the Marines carried out a Buster Call on Ohara, the island of archaeologists in the West Blue. They not only exterminated every scholar, but also ordered the sinking of an evacuation ship packed with innocent civilians.]

[The man who ordered the evacuation ship sunk: Then a Marine Vice Admiral, now a Marine Admiral, Akainu Sakazuki.]

No one spoke.

Even in the usually noisy Marine Plaza, not a sound could be heard except the low moan of the sea breeze through the columns.

Akainu stood in the plaza's shadows, his face flickering in the golden light from the Sky Screen. A vein throbbed at his temple, but he stood motionless as the stone tiles beneath his feet cracked faintly in the heat.

"Admiral Akainu sank a civilian evacuation ship?"

A young Marine muttered the question, so quietly that he could barely hear himself. Yet in the dead silence, his words rang clear.

The veteran beside him gave his sleeve a sharp tug, signaling him to shut up.

But most of the other Marines simply stared at the Sky Screen in silence. Their eyes held confusion, uncertainty, and the pain of something tearing them apart from within.

In the Fleet Admiral's office at Marine Headquarters, the atmosphere had sunk to freezing point.

"Sengoku, did you know about this?"

Aokiji's voice came from the doorway. He had said he was going out for some air, but evidently he hadn't gone far before turning back.

Sengoku didn't turn around. His back looked more hunched than usual in the fading light.

"The order concerning Ohara came directly from the World Government."

"I'm not asking about the World Government."

Aokiji entered the office and closed the door behind him.

"I'm asking about you, Sengoku."

"You're the Fleet Admiral. Did you know Akainu sank that evacuation ship?"

Sengoku was silent for three seconds.

"Yes."

The word came out through clenched teeth, heavy enough to shatter the floor.

Aokiji clenched his fists inside his pockets, a thin layer of ice forming between his fingers.

"They were civilians, Sengoku. Civilians who had already evacuated the war zone. Old people, women, children."

"I know."

"You knew and still approved it?"

"I didn't approve it."

Sengoku finally turned around. His face was full of exhaustion and the ashen look of a man driven into a corner.

"Akainu made that judgment on his own. He thought Ohara's scholars might have been hiding among the evacuated civilians. To eliminate every possible threat, he ordered the guns fired."

"And afterward?"

Aokiji pressed him.

"Did you hold him accountable afterward? Did you punish him? Did you report it to the World Government?"

Sengoku fell silent.

"You did nothing."

Aokiji's voice grew softer, but every word was bitterly cold.

"You chose to stay silent. That was the same as condoning it."

"Kuzan."

Sengoku spoke his name, his voice carrying a complicated emotion that was hard to identify as either pleading or self-defense.

"You were on Ohara too."

Aokiji went still.

The temperature throughout the room plunged below zero, and a delicate layer of frost spread across the window.

"Yes, I was."

Aokiji's voice changed. It was no longer questioning, but something heavier.

"I was on Ohara. I watched that island disappear beneath the guns of a Buster Call with my own eyes, and I let a little girl who survived go free."

He paused.

"Her name is Nico Robin. She's twenty-eight now, and the whole world has been hunting her for twenty years."

"When I let her go, I knew she would live in fear for the rest of her life, because she carries the secret the World Government least wants anyone to know."

Sengoku's lips moved, but no sound came out.

"So when you ask whether I know what Akainu did, of course I know."

Aokiji pulled the door open, cold air surging out behind him.

"I just wanted to hear you admit it yourself. You knew too."

He closed the door, and the frost on the window slowly melted, trickling down drop by drop.

Sengoku stood alone in the empty office. Golden light from the Sky Screen streamed through the window, stretching his shadow long across the room.

The image on the Sky Screen changed.

It was no longer text, but moving images.

It showed the West Blue twenty-two years ago, a beautiful island covered in towering Trees of Knowledge, with countless scholars poring over ancient texts beneath them.

"This is Ohara."

For the first time, the world saw what the island that had long since vanished from the map had once looked like.

Azure waters surrounded the verdant island. Scholars discussed the meaning of Poneglyphs in the library, while children ran and played on the grass.

One little girl with a ponytail sat beneath a giant tree, absorbed in a book larger than she was.

Her eyes were bright, filled with a focus and thirst for knowledge beyond her years.

The little girl turned a page, and a brilliant smile lit up her face.

In a cabin somewhere in Water 7, Nico Robin's hand trembled slightly as she held her coffee cup.

She saw herself as a child.

She saw her favorite tree.

She saw what Dr. Saul had looked like when he was still alive.

Coffee spilled over the rim and ran down her fingers. She didn't wipe it away, only watched the Sky Screen in silence.

"Robin."

Nami had come to her side at some point. She put an arm around her shoulders and said nothing more.

The images on the Sky Screen began to move faster, their peaceful colors being swallowed bit by bit by flames.

Marine warships appeared off Ohara's coast.

The signal flare for the Buster Call rose into the sky.

Then came the barrage.

A devastating rain of shells poured in from the sea. The Tree of Knowledge broke and burned amid the flames, the library roof caved in, and countless precious books and historical documents turned to ash.

The scholars ran out of the buildings. Some screamed, some tried to save the burning books, and some knelt on the ground, weeping as they clutched torn pages.

Then came the soldiers. Marine soldiers stormed ashore.

Their orders were simple: leave no survivors.

Civilians across the world watched the images, and many began to turn away, unable to bear watching any longer.

But the Sky Screen did not allow anyone to close their eyes. Those horrific scenes were etched into every person's retinas, frame by frame.

"This is the Marines' justice?"

On a street in Alabasta, an old man raised a trembling finger and pointed at the Sky Screen.

"Killing scholars, burning books, firing on civilians—what kind of justice is that?"

No one answered him.

The answer was already written on the Sky Screen.

Lin Qi chewed peanuts in the tavern as he watched the various figures on the screen soar. His excitement gradually gave way to a complicated expression.

"This CG is way too brutal. Is this game's writer some kind of sadist?"

He took a swig of beer to steady his emotions, but his fingers had already typed the next command on the keyboard.

"Whatever. Now that I've opened the wound, I need to squeeze out all the pus. Next, it's time to let Admiral Akainu face his crimes in person."

The images on the Sky Screen were approaching the heart of the matter.

The bombardment continued, but the camera slowly moved toward a ship sailing away from the battlefield.

It was a small boat packed with people, all of them civilians from Ohara. Elderly people huddled in the cabin with their arms around children, women crouched in corners clutching the few belongings they had, and every face showed fear and relief at having survived.

They had been evacuated ahead of time. They thought they were safe.

The image cut to the Marine flagship.

A younger Akainu stood on the bridge. His face was much younger than it was now, but the look in his eyes was exactly the same.

"Vice Admiral, the civilian evacuation ship has left the war zone. Should we let it pass?"

A subordinate asked him for orders.

Akainu looked down at the small boat sailing away and remained silent for less than two seconds.

"Sink it."

The subordinate froze.

"Vice Admiral?"

"I said sink that ship."

"But there are only civilians aboard. The scholars have already been eliminated."

Akainu turned and looked the subordinate in the eye.

"Can you guarantee that not one scholar slipped aboard?"

"Well..."

"If even one scholar escapes among the civilians, everything we've done today will have been for nothing."

Akainu raised a hand and pointed at the boat.

"For the sake of absolute justice, we cannot leave anything to chance."

"Open fire."

Cannon fire thundered from the Sky Screen.

The small boat was torn to pieces amid the flames, and the civilians' screams were swallowed by the explosion.

Splintered planks and tattered clothing floated on the sea.

A child's rag doll slowly sank beneath the waves.

The image froze on the moment the doll sank. The light faded bit by bit until everything went black.

A deathly silence fell over the world.

This silence was deeper and heavier than any that had come before.

No one discussed it, no one argued, and even the Underworld's usually raucous betting pools stopped operating.

Everyone was trying to take in what they had seen.

The rag doll sinking to the bottom of the sea.

In the plaza at Marine Headquarters, more than three thousand Marines stood where they were, tears streaking many of their faces.

When they enlisted, they had sworn to uphold justice and protect civilians.

Yet the Sky Screen had told them that twenty-two years ago, their Admiral had personally ordered the deaths of a boatload of civilians fleeing for their lives.

Akainu stood at the edge of the plaza. The ground within ten meters of him had been heated red, and waves of heat distorted his figure.

But he didn't move a single step.

He waited.

Waited for everyone to finish watching.

Waited for the questions and condemnations that were sure to come.

The system's voice rang out from the Sky Screen into the dead silence.

[Additional footage concerning the Ohara Incident has finished playing]

[This incident will now be publicly judged]

[Verdict: Marine Admiral Akainu Sakazuki committed unforgivable crimes against humanity during the Ohara Incident]

Golden characters appeared stroke by stroke across the heavens.

The whole world watched the man standing at the edge of the plaza.

Akainu finally moved.

He raised his head and looked at the judgment against him on the Sky Screen. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

"Crimes against humanity."

He repeated the words quietly, but everyone present heard him.

"Those scholars were researching information on Ancient Weapons. If that information had gotten out, it wouldn't have been one island that was destroyed, but the entire world."

"I did what had to be done."

His voice was steady, with no eagerness to defend himself, no panic at being exposed, only a certainty as cold as iron.

"If I had to do it again, I would fire that shot all the same."

His words echoed across the Marine Plaza, pounding into everyone's ears.

Aokiji stood at the corner of a corridor and heard those words. He stopped, then continued walking forward without looking back.

The system's voice from the Sky Screen paid no attention to Akainu's defense. It simply delivered the next line in cold indifference.

[The punishment for Marine Admiral Akainu Sakazuki will now be announced]