One had lost to Kaido, the other to Whitebeard. In a sense, they were evenly matched.
Whitebeard and Kaido had even been pirates on the same ship back then. At this point in time, Whitebeard carried far more weight than Kaido.
But no matter how strong Whitebeard was, it could not hide the fact that Crocodile had suffered a complete defeat.
By the rules, when a summons was issued, the Shichibukai were supposed to appear at the meeting venue.
Unfortunately, everyone who accepted a Shichibukai seat had their own ulterior motives. It was perfectly normal for no one to show up.
Just like the meeting after Crocodile's defeat in the original timeline—Sengoku had been surprised that three of the remaining six had even attended.
And among those three, Doflamingo had come to watch the show, Bear had come because of an agreement with the World Government, and Hawk Eyes had become interested in Luffy. In short, not one of them had responded voluntarily.
Crocodile had come here now purely to build an image for himself, to make the World Government and Marines think he was relatively dependable while he plotted his own major schemes.
Although Crocodile was displeased by Sengoku's jab, he did not make anything of it and simply found a seat across from him.
This was Mary Geoise. If he caused trouble here, he might end up attaining enlightenment in Dragon's arena ahead of schedule. The last person who had dared cause trouble at such an important institution had been Golden Lion.
But even Golden Lion had attacked Marine Headquarters, not Mary Geoise.
It was hard to say whether that counted as good luck or bad. If anything else went wrong, there happened to be someone across the way who sold Prosthetic Limbs.
"Alright, that is the situation.