Marineford

The vast azure sea glittered beneath the waves, while the sea wind blew bitterly cold.

Warships rode the wind and waves, sailing toward the same destination.

After a day and night at sea, the warship carrying them passed through the Gates of Justice and sailed on for some distance before they finally caught sight of 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, while squads of Marine soldiers hurried back and forth. Warships constantly arrived and departed, creating a scene of bustling activity. Behind Marine Headquarters lay an ordinary town where Marine families lived.

Marineford occupied a unique geographical position and held enormous strategic importance. Not only did it stand behind the Holy Land Mariejois, but the Sabaody Archipelago, over thirty kilometers away, was also the final stop in the first half of the Grand Line before pirates entered the New World—a mandatory passage point.

Thus, Marine Headquarters Marineford maintained a permanent force of thirty thousand men. The Marine Admiral Sengoku and the Admirals remained on standby at all times. Should any pirates dare cause serious trouble, they would face a thunderous strike.

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

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

This great bell was a sacred bell recovered 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 coming year and rang it another eight times. The total of sixteen rings was known as the Sixteen Bells, and it was also considered a declaration of the beginning and end of an "era."

Soon, they entered Marineford Military Academy and arrived at the training ground.

"Put your luggage over there, then line up in the center of the training ground."

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

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

At that moment, ten groups were already standing there, each consisting of ten Marine soldiers.

Clearly, these were soldiers selected from different Grand Line branches, all of whom had come 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 the Four Seas branches to a Grand Line branch or Marine Headquarters by accepting a three-rank demotion, then pass the selection process to earn admission.

After waiting a short while, another five groups gradually arrived and stood on the training ground with them.

After nine in the morning, another large group of Marine soldiers gradually arrived at the training ground.

However, these people did not come from other Marine branches. They had been selected from Marine Headquarters itself, and their numbers matched 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 tall and straight, heads held high, all brimming with youthful vigor.

They were this year's Marineford Military Academy cadets!

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

At nine twenty-five, a burly middle-aged man standing three meters and ten centimeters tall emerged from the teaching administration building with a school officer. He wore sunglasses and had neat short purple hair. They stopped in front of the three hundred Marine soldiers.

The school officer was a Longarm Tribe man with a rugged face and dark skin. His arms were so long that his hands could touch the ground while he stood upright. His long black hair was tied 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 your welcome gift...

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

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

"Anyone who fails to finish before noon won't get lunch today!"

Two hundred laps in one hour, with each lap around the academy training ground 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 staring 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!!!

"Timing 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 needed to maintain a speed close to twenty-two-point-three meters per second to finish...

The soldiers who had passed the selection process were all exceptionally fit and possessed the potential to become strong.

However...

Potential was just potential. They had not yet grown into that strength!

Therefore, the vast majority of them were destined to be punished with another hundred laps.

Before long, the differences in stamina between individuals became apparent. Some people's breathing rhythms had already fallen completely apart...

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

Whenever the two reached a straight stretch of the track, their legs would stomp the ground at high speed more than ten times, using the explosive speed generated by the recoil to propel themselves forward. Their figures moved so quickly that the naked eye could barely follow.

Only when they reached the turns did they slow down, preventing themselves from overshooting and flying off the track.

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

At their current speed, if they could maintain it, they should be able to complete Zephyr's assignment...

The two were both in their early twenties, one man and one woman.

The man had a lewd, ugly face, and a pink amulet bearing the character for "pig" hung from his chest. His name was Tokikake.

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

Soon, while sprinting at extreme speed, the two once again lapped the Marine soldiers at the back of the group.

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

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

But...

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

Going back and forth like that, using Soru would be less effective than simply running at full speed honestly...

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

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

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

Zephyr clearly did not have a student roster in his hands, yet he accurately called every new student by 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 at full speed around the track.

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

"Shuzo, put 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 memorized the names of those thirty people.

After that, Zephyr had already lost interest in watching any further, so he turned and walked straight back into the teaching administration building.

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

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

If they did not die prematurely, they would have a chance to become pillars of the Marines. Therefore, they would receive the best allocation of resources and training from now on...

(

So, let me clarify something here.

These two characters were later added by Oda as a patch in response to reader requests...

The official material never gave their ages. They only appeared briefly during the Reverie in Sea Calendar 1522 in the anime, and it is not even known whether, like Fujitora, they joined the Marines halfway through.

Therefore, everything regarding their time at the military academy is fan-created content. Please do not use other fanworks' original settings to argue 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.

Aside from Garp, the two generations of Admirals were approximately twenty years apart.

Gion and Tokikake's ages are unknown, while 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 likely have been somewhere from their thirties to their forties.

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

After all, the official information has not been completed. Their ages and experiences are as unknown as Schrödinger's cat.

Now that I've explained it this far, surely no readers will keep obsessing over Gion and Tokikake being in the same class as the protagonist, right?

Also, some readers said that Smoker and Hina entering military academy at seventeen and fifteen was too early, that they were still children. But according to official information, Zephyr joined the Marines at fourteen. Since the two had Devil Fruits and received focused training, isn't that normal?

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

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

When writing, I have always carefully referenced the timeline.

So I probably haven't made any outrageous timeline mistakes... (¬‿¬)?

Of course, later in the story, there is one place where I really did deliberately delay the timeline. But strangely, no one noticed, and no one criticized me for it... Hahahaha!

~(￣▽￣~)~

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

If you think this book is good, please add it to your bookshelf so you don't lose it next time.