In a certain sea of the New World, aboard one of Smoker's warships.
In the captain's cabin, Smoker received an urgent message from Marine Headquarters.
This urgent message had been sent by Marine Headquarters to all Marine officers stationed in the New World, and its contents were shocking:
Former Marine Admiral Zephyr had led the Pirate Guerrilla Squad in betraying the Marines. They had also attacked a secret Marine base in the New World and seized the controlled weapon, Dyna Stone.
Marine Headquarters instructed all Marine officers in the New World to watch for Zephyr's whereabouts and cooperate with Headquarters' large-scale manhunt at any time.
Zephyr, the Marine chief instructor whose students were spread across the seas, had become a terrorist everyone wanted to kill.
"Teacher Zephyr..."
Smoker placed the Den Den Mushi receiver down heavily and sank into long contemplation.
"Why did you become so..."
"Radical?"
Out of respect for Zephyr, Smoker hesitated before replacing the more fitting word "insane" with a milder one.
Yet while Smoker could not understand, he also understood the pain Zephyr had endured.
Zephyr had devoted his entire life to the Marines, only to suffer countless hardships because of Marine justice:
His wife and child had died because of the hatred he incurred by becoming a Marine, a whole ship of recruits he had painstakingly trained had been slaughtered by pirates, and he had lost an arm as a result.
After that, Zephyr had been betrayed by the Marines as well. He could only watch helplessly as his blood-soaked enemy became a legal Shichibukai.
And the one who had issued that order in the name of Fleet Admiral was not Sakazuki, the man who upheld Absolute Justice, but Kuzan—a disciple Zephyr had always thought highly of, one who had inherited his ideals of justice.