New World, Wano Country.
After the battle on Onigashima ended, the first shipment of food, medicine, and building materials sent by the Marines finally arrived at the port.
Outside the docks, tens of thousands of refugees formed a long line along the stone steps.
The line stretched from the harbor all the way beyond the city gates.
The sea breeze carried the stench of medicine, sweat, and rotting lumber.
Some were so hungry they could barely remain standing.
Others held children burning with unrelenting fever in their arms.
Still others had walked all the way from Udon and the abandoned factories, their soles long rubbed raw and bloody.
Yet the supplies had only just been unloaded.
The first to surround them were not the refugees.
They were former officials, samurai families, and merchants who had once again donned lavish attire.
"This food must be distributed uniformly by the capital!"
"The medicine is of vital importance. It cannot be handed over to lowborn people of unknown identity!"
"My ancestors once governed three districts. We should naturally be given priority in restoring our lands and stipends!"
Scroll after scroll of family genealogy was spread across the long table in the temporary council chamber.
The descendants of former daimyo who had bowed their heads under Kaido's rule for over a decade and had never openly resisted now stood tall once more.
They spoke of their ancestors, their bloodlines, and the lands and stipends they had once lost.
Not one of them spoke of the common people still starving outside the city.
Those people knelt amid rainwater and mud.
Yet the people in the council chamber had already begun arguing over which family's former residence should be restored first.
The officials who had once collected taxes for the Beasts Pirates and guarded the factories