Marineford, Marine Headquarters.
The setting sun was blood-red, the sky dim, casting its glow over the island stained crimson with blood.
After the war, Marineford was littered with corpses and scarred beyond recognition. Building after building had become rubble and ruins. Its former prosperity was gone, reduced to nothing more than a fleeting memory.
The bodies of Marines were carried in from all over the island and laid out in orderly rows across Oris Plaza. There were too many to count, enough to make one's scalp tingle at a glance.
After learning that the war had ended, many Marine family members hurried back to Marineford, wanting to personally confirm that their husbands, fathers, sons... were safe.
However...
When they returned to Marineford, all they found were cold corpses.
Weeping, choking sobs, and wails continuously echoed through Oris Plaza, and the air was thick with an inescapable grief.
Quite a few Marine soldiers were also bawling their eyes out.
Yet no one stepped forward to rebuke those Marine soldiers for displaying such weakness.
That brutal and merciless war had left deep psychological scars on many people. Besides grief and sorrow, the surviving Marines also felt the relief of having survived a catastrophe.
Inside a somewhat damaged residential building, the meeting between Steel Bone Kong, Sengoku, and Tsuru continued.
After quickly reviewing the documents in her hands, Tsuru placed them on the table and sighed softly.
"According to preliminary figures, twenty-three thousand Marine personnel were killed in this battle, and twelve thousand were injured or disabled. The death benefits and disability compensation that Marine Headquarters will need to pay afterward are expected to exceed one hundred billion Beli.
"Furthermore, according to reports from the engineering units, seventy-eight percent of Marineford's buildings have been damaged. The island's foundation poses serious safety risks and