Comrade

Comrades were those who shared the same ideals.

Hancock actually did not have much room to bargain.

The conditions for becoming a Shichibukai were fixed. Even if the World Government overlooked their past and future crimes, the Kuja Pirates were not like Doflamingo, the Heavenly Yaksha, or Crocodile. Those men's use of their Shichibukai status was what truly caused trouble for the World Government. No matter what, the threat the Kuja Pirates could create remained limited.

Especially after being brought under their wing, once the safety of Impel Down and the Holy Land of Mary Geoise had been secured, the Kuja Pirates would not be able to develop their external influence into anything truly frightening.

The Kuja Pirates' very structure determined that their strength was dictated by the Amazon Lily Kingdom, and Amazon Lily's population doomed the Kuja Pirates to never become a major force.

And Leo had achieved his goal as well.

Though he had been blending into the crowd all along, he had actually been somewhat afraid that Grandma Tsuru, Hina, and Momousagi—three people capable of using Observation Haki—would notice him, the odd one out among the Kuja Pirates.

Hancock's performance had been excellent. She had stunned most of them right from the start, leaving Grandma Tsuru and the other two unable to use Observation Haki to observe the Kuja Pirates. Naturally, that meant he was safe.

Once Hancock released Love-Love Mellow, those Marines seemed as though time had frozen for them. They had no idea that so much time had passed.

Indeed, the Time-Time Fruit, the Rewind-Rewind Fruit, and the Love-Love Fruit all seem to possess the ability to make time pass for people. Although nobody would want this kind of time suspension, if used properly, it could produce astonishing results.

As for exactly what sort of results, Leo had not thought it through in detail. The Time-Time Fruit could send people into the future, but if the Love-Love Fruit petrified someone and only released them just before death, that person could probably skip through several decades in an instant...

It completely defied physics. Perhaps that was simply the unique set of rules in the One Piece World.

As he pondered this inwardly, the Amazon warrior women had already begun cheering.

To them, this was an unquestionable victory. They did not know why the enemy had come to Amazon Lily, nor why they had said they would grant Empress Hancock the title of Shichibukai, but the warriors of Amazon Lily had gained the right to sail the seas freely without being hunted by the Marines.

They had won this battle.

"But this was only a tactical victory. Strategically speaking, the Marines won."

"What's strategy? And what's tactics?" Lan had become fairly familiar with Leo after he woke up, so while everyone ate, they continued asking him about the things he said.

Hancock had originally wanted him to dine in her bedchamber, but Leo had muttered strange things like, "From the masses, to the masses," and refused such privilege. Instead, he spent his days mingling in the ordinary Amazon warrior women's cafeteria. He had even tried to persuade the Empress to eat in the cafeteria with him.

But Hancock refused.

In the end, she was merely someone moved by Leo's goal. Just like people who wanted to overthrow an imperial system, even if their goals were the same, their paths would diverge after that goal had been achieved.

That goal was only a crossroads. Once they reached it, they would go their separate ways.

Leo's goal, however, was rather vast. So perhaps she would follow him all the way to the end, to see the scenery there.

And along that journey, Leo was confident that he could gradually make her truly become his—comrade.

For now, though, she still carried herself with a bit of a ruler's hauteur. But in Leo's eyes, such a ruler was no different from a tribal chief. The entire Amazon Lily Kingdom had, at most, five thousand people, with no more than two thousand warriors. They were indeed strong, but against the World Government, they probably could not even withstand a single Buster Call.

So she could hardly be called a "queen." Female chieftain was more like it.

After getting familiar with these Amazon warrior women, Leo began spreading his ideas whenever he had the chance.

He swallowed the food in his mouth and said, "Tactics are when you encounter a pirate crew at sea and fight them. That's tactics. Defeating them means you won tactically."

This was the cafeteria exclusively for Kuja Pirates officers and Guardian Warriors. Other than them, there were no other Amazon warrior women present.

Leo received no less attention here than outside, but there were far fewer people, and the quality was much higher. That spared him a certain amount of screening effort.

Everyone turned toward him, wanting to hear what grand insight Leo had to offer. Fiarandola, an Amazon Guardian Warrior standing nearly three meters tall, powerfully built yet well-proportioned, asked like a curious child, "Then what is strategy?"

"Strategy is that the Marines have already achieved their goal. They incorporated the Kuja Pirates, so the Kuja Pirates will never attack the Marines and cause them trouble again. The Marines have saved a great deal of military strength to use elsewhere. And by sailing Seastone Warships into Nine Snake Island, they also achieved their goal of intimidating Nine Snake Island. From now on, Nine Snake Island will have to leave more pirates behind to defend its home base, rather than freely bringing out everyone capable of using Haki."

"From that perspective, the Marines achieved two goals with one move. No matter how nicely they put it, they may still attack your home island. So when you go out raiding, you cannot stray too far from the island, and those left behind to defend it cannot be too weak. The moment the Marines appeared in these waters, their objective had already been achieved. Nine Snake Island was destined to remain trapped in passive, defensive resistance."

"Ah, then what should we do?" Not everyone in this world was a strategist, much less people who had not even known what strategy was. Earlier, they had been celebrating Hancock's expulsion of the Marines and the mighty reputation she had established. But after Leo explained it this way, they realized that Nine Snake Island had only one road ahead: the Marines would grow stronger and stronger, while Nine Snake Island would become increasingly exhausted from having to divide its forces.

They would not even dare sail far away to raid, for fear that their home base would be attacked.

It could be said that merely showing up, the Seastone Warships had already confined the Kuja Pirates to the vicinity of their home base.

As for the other strategic effects of Seastone Warships, Leo was not in a position to explain them to them in detail.

But clearly, Leo's words had frightened them all at once.

Everyone furrowed their brows, thinking hard about how to break the deadlock.

Some people, however, were relatively simple-minded. Most of the Guardian Warriors had never left the country to see the Grand Line. The only ones among them who had seen truly capable people were likely the Kuja Pirates' upper ranks and Leo.

Thus, Kikyo, the captain of the Guardian Warriors—a cool, beautiful woman with phoenix eyes and blazing red lips—asked with a frown, "Then how should we resolve this, Leo?"

PS: I'm completely stunned. When I woke up from a nap, it was already midnight. I hadn't even eaten dinner...

PS1: I'll eat and then write until four. I'll make up for it with an extra chapter today. If the votes are good, there might even be three chapters.