The next second, a black line flashed past.
There was no windup, no flashy movement, just an utterly ordinary swing.
The upper half of the reef island, large enough to accommodate a small town, slid off at an angle, its cut surface as smooth as a mirror.
Only then did the belated roar follow. Even through the crude recording equipment, it still made the conference room windows rattle.
The footage ended there.
The projector's fan sounded especially grating in the deathly silent conference room.
"Just a... slash?"
The scars on Vice Admiral Doberman's face twitched. He abruptly turned toward Sengoku, his tone tinged with disbelief. "Fleet Admiral, plenty of the Giants' vice admirals could cause that much destruction. Brute strength alone qualifies someone as an admiral candidate? Then wouldn't every giant in Elbaf be a fleet admiral? This is a farce!"
"Indeed~"
Kizaru leisurely clipped a nail, blew the fragments from his fingertips, and agreed with a crooked mouth. "Strength is a good thing, but in the New World, strength alone will get you toyed with to death. Without using Haki or developing a Devil Fruit ability in depth, this sort of brute is just slightly higher-grade cannon fodder. Mr. Sengoku, have Vice Admiral Garp's family ties clouded your judgment?"
The mood in the conference room instantly shifted toward skepticism.
Everyone present was a powerhouse who had clawed their way through mountains of corpses and seas of blood. They acknowledged that the destruction in the footage was astonishing, but it remained far short of an admiral, who represented the Navy's highest prestige.
Many officers nodded, their whispered conversations growing louder, mostly expressing dissatisfaction with the proposal.
Elevating a recruit from the East Blue to this position broke the rules and insulted veterans like them who had struggled for decades.
"Just brute strength?"
Sengoku looked at the roomful of skeptical faces, his eyes behind his lenses growing colder.
He offered no defense, merely pulled several more thin sheets from the pile of documents and tossed them into the center of the round table like a hand of cards.
The papers slid across the smooth tabletop, stopping precisely before the vice admirals who had objected most loudly.
"Treasure hunter Mad Trejer. Bounty: sixty million. Drew the World Government's attention for possessing a lead on pure gold. Cause of death: cut in two with one stroke."
"Arlong, leader of the Fish-Man Pirates. Former officer of the Sun Pirates, with a physique ten times stronger than a human's. Cause of death: cervical vertebrae crushed by grip strength alone."
Sengoku tapped the table with a finger each time he read out a name, the rhythm heavy.
"If these small fry from the East Blue still aren't enough to prove the point..."
Sengoku's gaze passed over everyone and landed directly on Onigumo, who had been sitting silently in a corner with his brows tightly knitted.
"Onigumo, last month you went to Foosha Village in the East Blue on a classified escort mission and delivered some senbei to Garp along the way. In your report afterward, all you wrote was 'warship damaged.'"
Sengoku's voice abruptly rose, carrying unquestionable authority. "Now, at this table, in front of all your colleagues, tell them exactly how your warship was damaged! And how was that Eight-Sword Style you're so proud of broken?"
Whoosh-
Everyone's gaze instantly focused on Onigumo.
Akainu had been staring at the documents on the table. At those words, he jerked his head up, two cold gleams shooting from his eyes beneath the shadow of his cap and pinning themselves to Onigumo's face.
Onigumo's teeth creaked around his cigar. He bit straight through it, and half the cigar fell onto the ash-covered front of his uniform.
His face, usually filled with viciousness and resolve, turned liver-red, the veins in his neck throbbing.
"I..."
Onigumo opened his mouth, his voice dry.
He looked around, seeing Doberman's astonishment, Kizaru's amusement, and Akainu's scrutiny.
For a hawkish vice admiral known for his hard-line stance, admitting defeat to a recruit was worse than death.
But under Sengoku's piercing stare, he knew he could not hide it.
"I lost."
Onigumo closed his eyes and forced the words through his teeth.
Though quietly spoken, those words instantly silenced the entire conference room.
"What did you say?" Akainu's voice was terrifyingly low. Magma began dripping uncontrollably from his right arm, burning several blackened holes into the expensive conference table. "You're a headquarters vice admiral, proficient in Life Return and Color of Arms and Color of Observation Haki. You lost to a seaman recruit from the East Blue? This isn't an April Fools' joke, is it?"
"I wasn't beaten by a Devil Fruit ability or some underhanded scheme."
Having started talking, Onigumo threw caution to the wind.
He opened his eyes, a trace of the terror he had felt facing that monster still lingering in them. "That day, I only wanted to test his mettle... I used Armament Haki and my Eight-Sword Style. But he... he was like a beast that had no idea what pain or fear even meant."
Onigumo drew a deep breath, as though trying to dispel the memories of that day. "My Haki-infused slashes only left white marks on his body. But his blade... that pure, nauseating killing intent crushed the momentum of my swords outright."
"It felt... like facing Kaido in his youth. No, it was violence even purer than that."
After finishing, Onigumo slumped against his chair as though utterly drained.
The conference room was deathly silent.
Doberman, who had just been clamoring that it was "only brute strength," now sat with his mouth slightly open, unable to close it for a long while.
The smile froze on Kizaru's face, and the nail clippers he had not finished using fell onto the table with a clack.
Even Kuzan, who had been sleeping the whole time, sat fully upright, staring gravely at Lin Xuan's photograph on the table.
This was not potential.
This was combat power ready for deployment.
A newcomer capable of crushing a veteran headquarters vice admiral in a head-on confrontation.
No one present needed to be told what that meant.
"Even so..."
Akainu broke the silence and stood, his towering shadow covering the tabletop. "Defeating Onigumo only proves that he has the strength of a top-tier vice admiral. An admiral candidate represents the world's highest fighting power. It takes not only strength, but also commitment to justice. I don't trust the allegiance of a brat raised under Garp's lax ways."
"Oh~ Sakazuki is right." Kizaru picked his nail clippers back up. Though his lazy tone had returned, his eyes were noticeably more serious. "It's too dangerous. Giving such uncontrollable power the high rank of candidate without first putting him through headquarters' tempering and observation-what if he gets upset one day and tears Marineford apart?"
The focus of the dispute shifted from insufficient strength to a lack of control.
But that itself was a form of recognition.
Most of the vice admirals secretly breathed a sigh of relief. At least they no longer had to dwell on being inferior to a recruit. Now it was a contest among the higher-ups over whether a monster could be controlled.
Sengoku watched the stalemate, but he already had a clear grasp of things.
His goal of shocking them had been achieved.
Making these arrogant officers recognize Lin Xuan's value was the real point of today's meeting.
As for the title of admiral candidate, it had been a means of raising the stakes all along.
"Since no one questions his strength, but you have doubts about his temperament and allegiance..."
Sengoku slowly gathered the documents on the table and sat back in the fleet admiral's chair, lacing his hands beneath his chin. The reflection on his lenses hid his eyes.
"Then we'll discuss it once he arrives." Sengoku unclasped his hands, his knuckles slightly pale from the prolonged pressure.
He removed his round glasses, took a cleaning cloth from his breast pocket, and slowly wiped the dustless lenses.
This was a way for everyone to back down.
"Then it's settled."
Sengoku put his glasses back on, the pressure in his voice easing as he became the strategist overseeing the whole situation once more. "Leaving a monster like this in the Four Blues is indeed a waste, and a potential danger. We'll discuss his exact rank after he arrives at Marineford and undergoes combat exercises and an assessment of his views on justice."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over Akainu, who was about to rise, and added pointedly, "Before he reaches headquarters, I don't want to hear anything about snuffing him out early or testing him in private. He is an asset to headquarters, not anyone's punching bag. If someone drives him over to the other side... I don't think anyone wants to bear those consequences."
Akainu's hand paused for half a second as he adjusted his collar.
He snorted coldly and lowered his cap's brim, hiding the lingering magma-red glow in his eyes.
"As long as he stands for justice, I naturally have no interest in laying a hand on a brat." Sakazuki turned, his cloak tracing a sharp arc behind him, leaving a pungent smell of sulfur in the air. "But if he's a beast wearing a Navy uniform... Fleet Admiral, you know my principles."
The door was shoved open heavily, then slowly swung back on its hydraulic closer.
"My, my, what a frightening obsession~"
Kizaru stood up slowly and stretched deeply, his joints cracking.
He glanced at the black hole Akainu had burned into the corner of the table and shook his head regretfully. "Another table to replace. Our budget is already so tight. Well then, I'll go have some tea to calm my nerves. Young people these days cut down entire islands at the drop of a hat. This old man's heart can't take it."
With the departure of those two supreme fighting powers, the other vice admirals gathered their documents and left one after another.
As Doberman passed Onigumo, he patted his colleague's shoulder, a measure of understanding in his eyes.
In the blink of an eye, only Sengoku remained in the vast conference room, along with the white goat that had been quietly chewing documents nearby all this time.
Sengoku leaned back in his chair and let out a long, weary breath.
He picked up the bag of senbei beside him, which Garp had secretly eaten down to crumbs, and tipped it. There really was not a single whole piece left.
"That bastard Garp..."
Sengoku cursed, but he was not truly angry. Instead, his brows knitted even tighter.
He looked at Lin Xuan's photograph on the table-the youth's eyes were wild, an unrestrained smile playing on his lips. That expression resembled neither a marine's nor a pirate's. Its purity was unsettling.
Onigumo's description kept echoing in his mind: a beast that had no idea what pain or fear meant.
"If he were simply strong, guidance could turn him into a sharp blade. But this kind of temper..." He tapped the table, producing dull knocks. "Garp assured me over the Den Den Mushi that this kid was well-behaved and obedient, with no faults apart from loving a fight."
Sengoku no longer dared believe a single punctuation mark of his old friend's words.
Someone who had traumatized Onigumo with his blade was being called "well-behaved"?
Sengoku felt a wave of unease.
That unease did not stem from wariness of Lin Xuan's strength, but from a more instinctive intuition.
This child was an enormous variable. What sort of splash would erupt when Garp threw him into the Navy's great dye vat?
"I keep feeling there's something else in the East Blue being hidden from me."
Sengoku stood and walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window.
Outside was Marineford's perpetually clear sky, yet as he looked toward the East Blue, he seemed to see a lingering haze.
Meanwhile, far away in the East Blue, beyond the entrance to the Grand Line.
The sky was leaden gray, fine rain shrouding this town of beginnings and endings.
Rain washed Loguetown's streets until they shone, and the air smelled of sea salt and old wood.
At the end of the street, a figure in a red leather jacket hurried through the wind and rain toward the Navy Branch.
Chapter 50: Smoker Was Beaten Senseless? This Newcomer Knows Haki!
The doors of the Loguetown Navy Branch were blown open by a rain-laden gust, giving a piercing scrape.
Isuka folded her dripping red umbrella. Before she could shake the water from her leather jacket, a gust of musty warmth hit her face, sharply contrasting with the cold curtain of rain behind her.
Frowning, she wiped the rain from her eyelashes. The katana at her waist struck the doorframe with a clunk.
"Oran, what the hell is going on?"
Before Isuka could make out anyone's figure, her voice already carried some irritation. "I was following a lead on Fire Fist. That guy is as slippery as an eel. Calling me back at a time like this-unless the sky is falling, I'm chopping your desk in half."
Sergeant Major Oran, who was there to receive her, wore a miserable expression and held hot water and a towel.
"Ensign Isuka, please keep your voice down..." Oran lowered his voice and nervously gestured with his lips toward a closed room upstairs. "The captain shut himself in his room after coming back. The doctor has examined him, but he..."
"Captain Smoker is hurt?"
Isuka stopped taking off her gloves.
That Logia user with the Smoke-Smoke Fruit?
Who could hurt him in a place like the East Blue?
"Let him in."
A hoarse voice came from behind the heavy wooden door at the end of the upstairs corridor.
It was a throat ruined by cigar smoke, yet now it carried a note of weakness.
Isuka asked no more questions and hurried upstairs in her wet tall boots.
Her leather boots struck the wooden stairs, the sound echoing through the empty building, every step seeming especially heavy.
She pushed the door open. There was no choking cloud of smoke inside.
The window was half open, letting in cold, damp wind that dispersed the usual smoke.
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