Marineford

The vast azure sea glittered under the waves, while the sea breeze blew bitterly cold.

Warship after warship rode the wind and waves, sailing in the same direction.

After a full day and night at sea, the warship carrying them passed through the Gates of Justice and sailed some distance farther before they finally saw an island... Marine Headquarters Marineford!

As they drew closer, the majestic Marine Headquarters building came into view for Sephiroth and the others.

The white seagull flag atop the watchtower fluttered in the wind.

Warships were neatly docked in the crescent-shaped naval harbor. Teams of Marine soldiers hurried back and forth, while warships continuously arrived and departed, creating a bustling scene. Behind Marine Headquarters lay an ordinary town where Marine families lived.

Marineford occupied a special location and held immense strategic significance. Not only did it stand behind the Holy Land Mariejois, but the Sabaody Archipelago, located over thirty kilometers away, was also the last stop in the first half of the Grand Line before pirates entered the New World—a necessary passage.

Therefore, Marine Headquarters Marineford maintained a permanent force of thirty thousand soldiers. The Marine Admiral and Admirals remained on standby at all times. Should pirates dare cause major trouble, they would face a thunderous strike.

After the warship dropped anchor in the naval harbor, Sephiroth and the others walked down the gangplank and lined up on the dock.

Before long, a lieutenant came to them and led them across Oris Plaza, passing the Ox Bell.

This great bell was a sacred bell taken long ago from the historically active warship, the Oaks Roiz.

According to Marine custom, when a new year began, people rang the bell eight times to give thanks for the past year, then prayed for the new year and rang it another eight times. The total of sixteen rings was called the "Sixteen Bells," and it was also regarded as a declaration of the beginning and end of an "era."

Before long, they entered Marineford Military Academy and arrived at the training field.

"Put your luggage over there, then line up in the middle of the field."

The lieutenant pointed toward a corridor where piles of luggage had already been placed, then pointed toward the center of the training field.

Sephiroth and the others did not ask any questions. After quickly setting down their luggage, they jogged to the center of the field.

At that moment, ten groups were already standing on the field, with ten Marine soldiers in each group.

Clearly, these were soldiers selected from different Grand Line branches, all of them here to enroll in Marineford Military Academy just like them.

If Marine soldiers from the Four Seas branches wanted to qualify for Marineford Military Academy, they could only transfer from a Four Seas branch to a Grand Line branch or Marine Headquarters by accepting a three-rank demotion, then pass the selection process to earn admission.

After waiting for a while, another five groups gradually arrived and stood on the field alongside them.

When the time reached nine in the morning, another large group of Marine soldiers gradually arrived at the field.

However, these people had not come from other Marine branches. They had been selected from Marine Headquarters itself, and their numbers equaled the combined total from the other fifteen Grand Line branches: one hundred and fifty people.

There were three hundred Marine soldiers in total. They stood ramrod straight, heads held high, each one brimming with vitality.

They were the cadets of this year's Marineford Military Academy!

After graduating in the future, they would be assigned to different departments and become the backbone of the Marines.

At 9:25, a burly middle-aged man standing 3.1 meters tall, wearing sunglasses and sporting neat purple short hair, emerged from the teaching administration building with a commissioned officer and stopped before the three hundred Marine soldiers.

The officer was a rough-faced, dark-skinned Longarm Tribe man. His arms were long enough to touch the ground while standing upright. He had tied his long black hair into a braid. His name was Shuzo, Zephyr's beloved disciple and adjutant.

"Yo! New students, I'm your chief instructor, Zephyr.

"Since this is our first meeting, consider this a little welcome gift...

"All of you, run two hundred laps around the field!

"Anyone who fails to finish within an hour gets another hundred laps.

"Anyone who fails to finish by noon gets no lunch today!"

Two hundred laps in one hour, with each lap around the academy field measuring four hundred meters...

In other words, they had to run eighty kilometers in an hour!

If they failed to finish within an hour, they would have to run another forty kilometers!

Seeing the three hundred Marine soldiers still standing there and looking at one another, Zephyr immediately roared:

"Are you all deaf? If you're not running, get the hell out of here!!!

"I don't need trash here!!!

"Time starts now!!!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!...

After confirming that Chief Instructor Zephyr was not joking, the three hundred Marine soldiers immediately rushed onto the track and began sprinting for their lives.

Eighty kilometers in an hour meant they had to maintain a speed close to 22.3 meters per second to finish...

The soldiers who had passed the selection process all possessed exceptionally strong physical abilities and the potential to become powerful.

However...

Potential was only potential. They had not grown strong yet!

Therefore, the overwhelming majority of them were basically doomed to receive the punishment of another hundred laps.

Not long afterward, the difference in stamina between individuals became apparent. Some people's breathing rhythms had already fallen completely apart...

Yet at the front of the three hundred Marine soldiers, on the outermost lane of the track, two people were far ahead of everyone else. Even Sephiroth could only barely keep up behind them.

Whenever those two reached a straight section of the track, their legs stomped the ground at high speed more than ten times, using the explosive speed generated by the recoil to move, making their figures too fast for the naked eye to follow.

Only when they reached the bends did they slow down, preventing themselves from charging too fast and flying off the track.

Clearly, the technique they used was one of the Marine Six Powers... Soru!

At their current speed, if they kept it up, they should be able to complete the task Zephyr had assigned...

Both were in their early twenties, one man and one woman.

The man had a lecherous, ugly face and wore a pink amulet bearing the character "Pig" around his neck. His name was Tokikake.

The woman was beautiful, with a beauty mark at the corner of her right mouth. She had a voluptuous figure, and a spider tattoo was inked on the exposed left thigh beneath her shorts. Her name was Gion.

Very quickly, while running at extreme speed, the two once again lapped the Marine soldiers at the back of the group.

In fact, after all his recent training, Sephiroth's current physical condition allowed him to barely use Soru as well. However, stomping the ground at ultra-high speed placed an enormous burden on his legs.

If he kept using it during a long-distance run, his legs would definitely be injured. The loss of vitality was a minor matter, since he had several ways to replenish it.

But...

While recovering from his injuries, he could not maintain his high-speed movement and would have to slow down.

Going back and forth like that, the results of using Soru would not be as good as simply running flat out honestly...

Just as Sephiroth considered whether he should use Vampire Transformation to increase his running speed, he heard Zephyr roaring again:

"Smoker, if you dare slack off with elementalization again, I'll reward you with a pair of Sea Stone handcuffs and make you run three hundred laps!

"Hellinger, if you don't change those wheel legs back right now, I'll make you carry a warship while you run!..."

Zephyr clearly had no student roster in his hands, yet he accurately called out every new student's name...

Listening to the purple-haired old man's repeated roars, Sephiroth could only helplessly abandon the idea of transforming into a vampire and continue running around the field with all his strength.

When Tokikake and Gion completed one hundred laps, Zephyr took a notebook and pen from the adjutant at his side and rapidly wrote down thirty names on a sheet of white paper.

"Shuzo, form these people into one class. Handle the rest as you see fit."

"Yes!"

Zephyr's adjutant, Shuzo, nodded and took back the paper and pen. He quickly committed the thirty names to memory.

After that, Zephyr had already lost interest in continuing to watch, so he walked straight back into the teaching administration building.

If Marineford Military Academy was a place specifically meant to cultivate officers, then the class whose names Zephyr had personally written down could be called... the Star General Class!

In Zephyr's assessment, all thirty of those people had the potential to become officers of general rank in the future.

As long as they did not die prematurely, they would have the chance to become pillars of the Marines. Therefore, they would receive the best allocation of resources and training from then on...

Therefore, let me explain something here.

These two characters were later patched in by Oda at readers' request...

The official sources never gave their ages. In the anime, they only made a brief appearance during the Reverie in Sea Calendar 1522. It is not even known whether, like Fujitora, they joined the Marines halfway through their lives.

Therefore, everything involving their time at military academy is fan-created material, so please do not discuss other fanworks' interpretations with me... Thank you!

I have also made a rough estimate of Momousagi and Tokikake's ages.

First, in Sea Calendar 1522, Garp was seventy-eight, Sengoku was seventy-nine, and Zephyr was seventy-four.

Akainu was fifty-five, Kizaru was fifty-nine, and Aokiji was forty-nine.

Other than Garp, the age gap between the two generations of Admirals was roughly twenty years.

Gion and Tokikake's ages are unknown. The current timeline is Sea Calendar 1503, nineteen years before 1522.

Assuming both attended military academy, based on the age gap between the two generations of Admirals, they would probably have been somewhere between their thirties and forties.

Rolling their ages back nineteen years, they should have been in their twenties. Given that Kizaru entered military academy at twenty-six and Akainu at twenty-three, it is not impossible for the two of them to have entered military academy in their twenties...

In Sea Calendar 1522, Smoker was thirty-six and Hina was thirty-four. If Gion and Tokikake attended military academy, they might have been one or two classes above them, though it is also possible they were in the same class.

After all, the official materials never filled in the details. Their ages and experiences remain as unknown as Schrödinger's cat.

Having said all that, readers should not keep obsessing over Gion and Tokikake being in the same class as the protagonist, right?

Also, some readers said Smoker and Hina entered military academy too early at seventeen and fifteen, that they were still children. But official information says Zephyr joined the Marines at fourteen, so would it not be normal for the two of them to receive special training because they had Devil Fruits?

Hm!?... Some readers also said my timeline was a complete mess and that I had never watched One Piece...

Ahem!... Actually, I have watched the anime, manga, films, specials, ukiyo-e stories, games, Ace's novels and manga, as well as the questions Oda answered in SBS.

When writing this book, I have always carefully referred to the timeline.

Therefore, I probably have not made any outrageously absurd timeline mistakes...(乛ω乛")?

Of course, later in the story, there is one place where I really did intentionally delay the timeline. Yet no one noticed, and no one criticized me for it... Hahaha!

~(￣▽￣~)~

Of course, I will fill in that plot hole—the Devil Fruit plot hole and the Conqueror's Haki plot hole—one by one later...)

If you think this book is good, please remember to add it to your bookshelf so you do not lose it next time.