"Yas! In my capacity as a Marine Admiral, I hereby grant you an exceptional promotion!"
Sengoku's voice, infused with internal power and resonant as a bell, echoed repeatedly over the ruined square.
Thousands of Marine soldiers, from the recruits collapsed on the ground to the dumbstruck field officers, held their breath. At that moment, their hearts nearly stopped beating.
An exceptional promotion!
This was an exceedingly rare honor in Marine history! It was usually reserved for heroes who had rendered unparalleled service in major battles!
Yas was a recruit who had joined the Marines just over a month ago. What position would he be granted?
Warrant officer? Or would he skip every stage of recruit training and become a commissioned junior officer outright?
Standing before Yas, the scar-faced major who had been mocking him only moments earlier felt an intensely ominous premonition rise within him. He stared fixedly at Sengoku, his fists unconsciously clenching at his sides.
Under the entire crowd's deathly silent gaze, Sengoku met Yas's utterly tranquil eyes and announced, word by word, a decision worthy of going down in Marine history:
"The rank of... Marine Headquarters major!"
Boom!
The word "major" exploded among the crowd like an actual bomb!
At that moment, all of Marineford erupted!
"Wh... what? Did I hear that right? Major?!"
"Are you kidding me?! Straight from recruit to Headquarters major?! That's fucking faster than riding a rocket! Has anything like this happened in the hundred years since the Marines were founded?"
"Madness! Admiral Sengoku must have gone mad! He only fought a vice admiral. He hasn't actually hunted down a major pirate! This is against regulations!"
After a brief, deathly silence, a tidal wave of objections and uproar burst from the formations of veteran officers.
Especially those veterans who had spent over a decade struggling through the lower ranks, barely clawing their way to junior officer positions after countless life-and-death battles-their eyes went red!
The looks they gave Yas no longer held their earlier contempt, but naked jealousy and venom!
What gave him the right?!
Just because he had displayed strangely powerful abilities? Just because he had been lucky enough not to be beaten to death by Vice Admiral Garp?
The scar-faced major was the first to step forward. He roared toward the raised platform, "Admiral Sengoku! I refuse to accept this! I firmly oppose this appointment!"
"Rank is earned through military achievements and seniority! Not through performances on a training ground! How can you expect us battle-hardened veterans to accept some brat who's never even seen a pirate becoming our superior? What will our brothers bleeding and dying on the front lines think?!"
Those words instantly ignited every veteran's emotions.
"That's right! We won't accept it!"
"Unless he comes back carrying the head of a pirate with a bounty over a hundred million, we'll never recognize his rank as major!"
"Send him back to boot camp! The Marines don't need a grandstanding genius like him!"
For a time, outrage ran high. Countless hostile gazes stabbed at Yas in the square like sharp swords.
Faced with this universal condemnation, Yas did not so much as twitch an eyebrow.
He had never needed the recognition or acceptance of the weak. He believed in only one principle-beat everyone who refused to accept him into submission.
"Silence!"
Admiral Zephyr stepped forward, and an aura of ruthless martial severity burst outward, instantly suppressing all the noise.
"Regulations?" Zephyr swept his cold gaze over the clamoring officers, his eyes piercingly icy. "On these seas, the strong make the rules! Anyone who objects can go down there personally and see whether they can survive that finger of his! Or do any of you dare take a punch from Garp without a scratch?"
Zephyr's words left the officers' faces alternating between livid and pale, instantly silencing them.
Take that finger attack from Yas? What a joke! Seawater was still welling up from the deep trench that had split the square in two!
Take a punch from Garp? That was even more of a death wish!
"Hahahahaha!" Picking his nose, Garp laughed carelessly. "Zephyr, don't scare these youngsters. Still, I do think this kid's worth a major's rank. Anyone who disagrees can come train aboard my ship. I'd be more than happy to loosen up their bones with my Love Fist!"
Garp's words proved even more effective than Zephyr's. At the mention of the "Love Fist," every officer instinctively shuddered and dared not utter another word.
Sengoku adjusted his cracked glasses, his imposing gaze settling on the scar-faced major who had led the objections.
"Your objections amount to believing he lacks actual combat achievements." Sengoku's voice held no emotion. "A reasonable point. Then let us give him an opportunity to prove himself."
Sengoku turned toward Yas, his voice suddenly rising, filled with unquestionable authority.
"Receive your orders, Major Yas! As your first assignment following your promotion, I order you to assemble a squad immediately, set sail aboard a Vanguard-class high-speed gunboat, and proceed to the waters near the Reverse Mountain route to wipe out the Butcher Pirates, who have been rampaging through that area recently!"
The Butcher Pirates!
At that name, the expressions of quite a few well-informed officers present changed drastically once again!
"Butcher" Gore had a bounty as high as eighty million Beli! In the first half of the Grand Line before the Rocks era, that already made him a formidable local villain! He was said to be brutal and bloodthirsty, particularly fond of turning his captives' flesh and blood into food, and every pirate under his command was a desperate outlaw!
Marine Headquarters had twice dispatched fleets led by field officers to eliminate them, only for both attempts to end in failure. Even a rear admiral's warship had been severely damaged by them!
They were sending a newly promoted "greenhorn" major with a hastily assembled squad to take on such an infamously vicious pirate crew?
This was no test! They were simply sending him to his death!
The scar-faced major froze. He had never expected Admiral Sengoku to answer his objections this way. His mouth opened, but for a moment, he could not speak. If Yas died out there, the appointment would become a joke; but if Yas actually succeeded... he would use genuine military achievements to slap every doubter hard across the face!
"Yes, sir."
Yas's reply was brief and firm, without the slightest hesitation.
Killing pirates? That suited him perfectly. He needed plenty of battles to increase his template's integration.
"Very good." Sengoku nodded in satisfaction. He took a brand-new appointment document and a pair of major's epaulettes from inside his clothes, while the orderly behind him held a brand-new Marine officer's coat with the word "Justice" printed on its back.
"Here are your appointment papers and uniform." Sengoku handed the items to Yas, his gaze sharpening. "Your warship is already docked at Pier Seven and can depart at any time. What you need to do now is select your crew here."
With that, Sengoku took a step back and swept his gaze over all the Marines present.
"Major Yas's gunboat, the Vanguard, has a complement of thirty. It now needs twenty-nine crew members."
Sengoku's gaze slowly passed over the seasoned junior and field officers, his voice steady and powerful.
"Which of you is willing to follow the youngest major in Marine history on his first mission at sea, to hunt down the Butcher who brought your colleagues to a bitter end?"
As his words fell, the entire square sank into an eerie, deathly silence once more.
The officers who had been protesting the unfairness of Yas's promotion all averted their eyes, as though they had agreed to do so beforehand.
Some lowered their heads to study the cracks in the ground, as though peerless treasures lay hidden within.
Some tilted their heads upward at forty-five degrees to gaze at the sky, seemingly contemplating the philosophy of life.
Others simply gathered in groups of three or five, whispering among themselves and pretending to discuss important military affairs.
The scar-faced major who had led the trouble wore an especially undisguised smirk of mockery and schadenfreude.
Was this a joke?
Serve under a brat who hadn't even grown his hair yet? And undertake a mission with almost no chance of survival? Only if a Sea King had chewed up their brains!
They were all waiting to see Yas make a fool of himself.
What irony and humiliation it would be to watch a newly appointed major, a "favored prodigy," fail to find even a single crew member willing to follow him!
Time passed, second by second.
Across the vast square, apart from the howling sea wind, not a single sound was heard.
Yas, the youngest major in Marine history, stood alone in the middle of the ruins, as though isolated by the entire world.
Sengoku's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
He had not expected such intense resistance from these slippery old veterans either.
Amid this excruciatingly awkward atmosphere, just as Sengoku was about to assign personnel himself, a trembling yet resolute voice rose from the formation of shivering recruits.
"Reporting... reporting to Major Yas! I... I'm willing to join!"
Before you continue