Marine Headquarters, medical district, Intensive Care Unit.
The heavy scent of medicinal herbs mingled with disinfectant in the silent private ward. Garp lay on his back in the hospital bed, his chest and arms wrapped in thick bandages. Through the gaps, the pale pink of newly grafted flesh and the charred scars of severe burns were visible. Gauze soaked in medicine covered his eyes tightly, a faint dampness stirring beneath it with each breath.
The door was gently pushed open.
Vice Admiral Tsuru entered soundlessly, carrying a tray of supplies for changing his dressings. Looking at her old friend of more than half a century, now covered in wounds and blind in both eyes, a trace of heaviness she could scarcely conceal crossed her usually calm eyes. She set the tray on the bedside cabinet and let out an almost inaudible sigh.
"Oh? Tsuru, is that you?"
Garp's voice rang out, slightly hoarse but still carrying his characteristic rough vigor-though much weaker than before. Deprived of sight, he could still vaguely sense the outlines and movements of the lives around him with his pinnacle-level Observation Haki.
"Your eyes," Tsuru said, sitting in the chair beside his bed, her voice calm but low. "Sengoku said he's working on a solution. He's already contacted Dr. Vegapunk's team urgently, to see whether the Science Unit... can do anything."
She paused, her gaze passing over Garp's hideous wounds, especially the areas on his arms where laser streams had burned him so severely that some muscle tissue had even carbonized and fallen away.
"I never imagined... that kid could go this far."
A brief silence fell over the ward.
Only the steady ticking of medical equipment remained.
After a long while, Garp spoke again, but his voice no longer held its old exuberance. Instead, it