The sea breeze at Marineford still carried the lingering smell of gunpowder.
Half a month had passed since the Paramount War ended. Most of the battlefield ruins had been cleared away, but the decline of Marine Headquarters had not improved in the slightest. Nearly half of its hundred thousand elite troops had been lost, and all its territories in the Four Blues were gone. Marine Headquarters, which had once awed the seas, now held only the narrow stretches of the Grand Line and the Red Line. Like a giant with its limbs severed, it struggled even to maintain its former dignity.
Inside the Fleet Admiral's Office, sunlight fell through the windows onto the floor, yet failed to dispel the gloom within.
Dressed in a crisp Fleet Admiral's uniform, Sengoku pushed two stamped documents toward the Five Elders' Visual Den Den Mushi opposite him. One was his resignation as Fleet Admiral; the other was Garp's application to retire as a Marine Vice Admiral.
At the other end of the Den Den Mushi, the Bald Five Elders' face was livid, his voice filled with suppressed fury. "Sengoku, do you think submitting your resignation will absolve you of your mistakes? You cannot escape blame for the state the Marines are in today!"
Sengoku sat in his chair, his back still straight, though his white hair made him look all the older. His voice was calm but carried an unshakable resolve. "It is precisely because the Marines have reached this state that I must resign as Fleet Admiral. As Fleet Admiral, I bear an inescapable responsibility for our defeat in this war. Resigning to take responsibility is the only accounting I can offer."
"As for the Marines' future," he paused, his gaze sweeping over Akainu, Aokiji, and Kizaru standing nearby, then continued slowly, "the