The Man Who Should Have Vanished from the Era

"Seven... Warlords...!!!"

At this moment, it was not only Fleet Admiral Sengoku—even most of the Navy High Command present had faces that were ashen with fury.

"The Shichibukai! Those scum actually dared to assassinate Vice Admiral Yaen! Unforgivable!"

"Those pirates really are impossible to trust..."

"Surround and annihilate them all! Avenge Vice Admiral Yaen!"

Just as a considerable portion of the Navy High Command was seething with anger, Vice Admiral Tsuru remained remarkably calm and spoke up. "Wait..."

Vice Admiral Tsuru took the small scrap of paper from the medical team captain, then looked at the meeting records lying on the floor, stained red with Yaen's blood. After making a simple comparison with the records, she was shocked to discover that the note had been torn from them.

"Looks like there's no mistake. The Shichibukai did this."

"Vice Admiral Tsuru, Fleet Admiral Sengoku, we can't hesitate any longer..."

"That's right. How can we allow those people to commit such an atrocity and then leave Marineford unscathed?"

As the Navy High Command watched Vice Admiral Tsuru's actions and began voicing their opinions one after another, she once again interrupted them, saying,

"What if this was the killer's objective? With Marine Headquarters about to clash with the 'Whitebeard Pirates,' they deliberately assassinated Vice Admiral Yaen and framed the Shichibukai, intending to provoke conflict between the Navy and the Shichibukai and thereby greatly weaken the Navy's combat strength. It's not impossible."

After a pause, Vice Admiral Tsuru raised the scrap of paper in her hand and continued,

"Since the killer deliberately pinned Vice Admiral Yaen to the wall, this scrap of paper may well have been deliberately placed in his hand. Everything they did could have been intended to anger the Navy and provoke conflict between the Navy and the Shichibukai."

"This..."