Marine Headquarters.
The Fleet Admiral's Office.
Knock, knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the office's heavy door, accompanied by a report that barely suppressed its nervousness.
"Reporting!"
A Marine field officer pushed open the door, his expression as solemn as if he had just attended a funeral. His salute was textbook, but slightly stiff.
"We have received top-priority intelligence from the frontline reconnaissance team! The pirate fleet led by Edward Newgate has completed its turn in the Calm Belt and is heading back toward Marineford... at full speed!"
The officer lowered his saluting right hand and stood at attention, waiting for Fleet Admiral Sengoku's next orders.
Yet Sengoku simply stood quietly at the window, his back to him, without a word.
A suffocating silence settled over the room, broken by only one other sound.
Crunch... crunch...
Garp the Hero sat sprawled on the sofa, expressionlessly taking rice crackers from the coffee table and putting them into his mouth one after another, chewing with crisp crunches.
He seemed deaf to the military intelligence that could shake the world once again.
Finally, Garp broke the oppressive atmosphere.
Because he knew someone was coming to save Luffy.
Although his position as a Marine prevented him from intervening himself, Whitebeard's return was undoubtedly the greatest wild card.
He was in such a good mood that even Sengoku's constipated-looking face seemed a little more pleasing to the eye.
He calculated inwardly, Akainu was killed in a single blow, and all the Shichibukai have run off. They won't be back anytime soon.
Marineford as it stands can't withstand an all-out assault from Whitebeard's forty-three New World pirate crews. That old fox Sengoku is bound to take that into account.
*"If I stoke the fire a little more, I'll have at least a fifty-fifty chance of convincing him