"You're just a child. How could you possibly know how much we've sacrificed?"
Shanks tightened his grip on Gryphon, putting even more force into it.
"Sacrifice? Mister, does the so-called sacrifice you're talking about really match the growth in your strength?"
A trace of undisguised mockery gradually entered Shirahoshi's voice.
"You gave up so much and dreamed up such a grand future, yet when it comes to the most important thing, how to overthrow the World Government, you've made no practical plans and achieved no real progress."
"I'm already sixteen years old, uncles. You've stood still for a full twenty years."
"Nearly twenty years ago, Shanks, Father once evaluated you. Back then, he rated your strength as A+ and praised you for having the potential to reach S+."
"But today, twenty years later, Father doesn't even care to fight against you anymore. As part of the next generation, I've personally witnessed your struggle here. Yet the highest rating I can give you is only S."
"Your potential, and the potential of your companions, was never fulfilled."
Shirahoshi's sweet voice now seemed like the sharpest blade, stabbing straight into the hearts of every pirate present.
"With the talent Roger once had such high hopes for, after twenty years, you should never have ended up at only this level."
[T/N: Hey, it's not his fault. One Piece has a slow plot pacing.]
Every word Shirahoshi spoke became a tangible humiliation, slapping heavily across the faces of the Red Hair Pirates.
Although Shanks was still fighting desperately in the center of the battlefield and had not yet lost, looking around, aside from Beckman, who was barely maintaining a stalemate against Sanji, the elite members of the Red Hair Pirates had all collapsed to the ground like dead dogs.
The hopeless gap in strength was laid bare before their eyes.
And now a sixteen-year-old girl was standing over them and mocking them without restraint.
No one could keep even the slightest bit of calm.
"Heh... Since you think I'm so weak, and everything I've done over the past twenty years means nothing in your eyes, then why don't you just kill me? Is humiliating me like this really that entertaining?"
With bloodshot eyes, Shanks wildly swung Gryphon to force back Ace's attacks while letting out an angry laugh.
"Of course it's entertaining."
Smiling brightly, Shirahoshi reached out with her white-gloved hand and lightly pinched Makino's colorless cheek.
Then she turned toward Shanks with an innocent look that seemed completely natural.
"You're clearly this weak, yet you keep talking all day about resisting the World Government. Since you insisted on sticking your head out, it's only natural that we give you a good beating today. Isn't that the most basic rule on this sea?"
"Hahahaha! That's actually a pirate's kind of logic! But with just a few brats like you, it'll be another hundred years before you can truly do anything to me!"
Shanks burst into loud laughter, trying to hide the unease in his heart behind his usual carefree attitude.
He was someone who valued his feelings and his companions deeply.
But now, if he showed concern for his crew and Makino, it would only have the opposite effect.
"Oh? Really?"
The smile at the corner of Shirahoshi's mouth became even stranger.
Instead of arguing with Shanks, she suddenly raised her voice and asked, "Brother Ace, after that blind pirate had his head crushed earlier, when this Emperor struck your blade, was there really no emotional fluctuation or opening in his attacks?"
"At least thirty percent heavier."
Ace sighed.
The muscles in both arms bulged as he firmly held back Shanks' increasingly violent slash with his Zanpakuto coated in Armament Haki.
"Hey, hey, Shirahoshi, don't make things harder for me by provoking him from the sidelines, okay? This old guy is a monster who fought through the same era as Dad. Once he starts risking everything, he's really not easy to deal with!"
"Did you hear that, Uncle Shanks? Looks like you're not as carefree as you claim to be, and you don't actually care so little about the lives of those pitiful crew members."
By now, Shirahoshi had turned back around.
Though every sentence was directed at Shanks, her perceptive eyes remained fixed on Makino the entire time.
She didn't care whether Shanks understood the malice hidden behind her words.
But judging from Makino's trembling shoulders and tightly bitten lip, Shirahoshi was certain this intelligent woman understood everything.
After a brief silence...
"I am willing to become a Chosen Princess. I... am doing this willingly."
Though Makino's voice trembled slightly from fear, she braced herself against the shattered bar counter and forced herself upright.
Her face was pale, but she met Shirahoshi's gaze with complete determination and slowly stated her decision.
Only now did she finally understand why Shirahoshi's earlier words had seemed contradictory.
Why the Chosen Princess system was clearly compulsory, yet the World Government still confidently claimed that it would never go against the wishes of the chosen person.
Because as long as someone was human, as long as they had flesh and blood, there would always be something buried deep in their heart that they treasured more than anything else.
There were only two paths before her.
The first was to use her freedom and dignity as bargaining chips in exchange for the chance for these pirate friends she cared about to survive.
The second was to protect her own pitiful innocence while watching these friends who treated the tavern as their home have their heads crushed one after another like Rockstar, right before her eyes, while she stood helpless amid blood and despair.
Placed on a scale, even the dullest person would know how to answer such a cruel choice.
"Makino! Have you lost your mind? Why would you agree to a devil whose mouth is full of lies?"
Upon hearing those words, Shanks let out a desperate roar like a lion driven into a dead end.
He wasn't stupid.
How could he fail to see the reason behind Makino's resolve?
It was precisely because he understood that he felt even worse.
To keep him and his useless companions alive, the woman he loved was being forced to make such a sacrifice.
And in the long years ahead, Makino would have to endure the enemy's abuse and humiliation in the Holy Land of Mary Geoise.
Just imagining it was unbearable to Shanks.
This kind of humiliation, trampling a man's pride over and over again, was something no hot-blooded man could endure, much less someone as proud as Shanks.
"I don't want the endless wealth and luxury promised by the World Government..."
Makino ignored Shanks' roar.
She merely turned around and gave him a smile brighter than sunlight yet filled with sorrow.
Then she looked back at Shirahoshi and offered her final bargaining chip as the chosen one.
"But I have one condition. Please spare Shanks and his companions forever, until the end of my life. This is my only and final request."
"Deal."
Shirahoshi agreed immediately without the slightest hesitation.
Seeing the doubt in Makino's eyes, perhaps worried she would think it was an empty promise, Shirahoshi smiled and raised the stakes.
"Since you're so understanding, I'll swear in the name of Jaygarcia and give you an absolute guarantee. You may still have doubts about my character, but Shanks should know very well that no one in this world dares joke about that surname."
At this point, Shirahoshi changed her tone, and a hint of coldness entered her voice.
"However, let me make one thing clear first. I only guarantee that their lives will be spared as long as they don't actively interfere with the operation of the World Government."
"But if one day they insist on throwing themselves into danger... then you can't blame me for breaking my word."
"That's enough, Shanks. Stop fighting."
After hearing this promise sworn on that family name, Makino's smile became even brighter, as if a tremendous burden had been lifted from her shoulders.
Since Shirahoshi dared make such an oath in front of Shanks, it naturally carried unquestionable weight.
Besides, if the oath were false, Shanks, who understood the World Government better than anyone, would have exposed it immediately.
Watching everything unfold, Makino felt that the World Government might indeed have committed many wrongs.
But judging from the way these young people spoke, along with some of Shanks' unspoken admissions, she could tell the World Government had not fallen completely into evil.
At the very least, it was better than pirates living without order.
"Makino, don't agree to this! I'm begging you, take it back!"
Shanks' arm dropped weakly.
With a clang, Gryphon's tip struck the floor.
Across from the heavily breathing Ace, he stared at Makino with a devastated expression and bloodshot eyes.
His voice was so hoarse it nearly broke apart.
"We don't need you to save us this way! We chose to resist the World Government because we wanted our own freedom! A price this heavy, soaked in blood, should never be carried by a weak woman like you! At worst... at worst, the whole crew dies here together!!"
"Alright, Shanks. You still have adventures waiting for you out on the sea. Take good care of yourself in the future. Don't always be so reckless."
Makino gave him no chance to stop her.
Smiling, she gently waved at the red-haired man standing before her.
Then she turned away without hesitation.
The battle had already reached this point.
The Red Hair Pirates couldn't even touch the edge of Shirahoshi's clothes.
Even an ordinary woman with no fighting ability like herself could clearly feel the suffocating difference in strength.
Perhaps Shirahoshi and the others truly couldn't kill Shanks and Beckman in a short time.
But killing Yasopp, Lucky Roux, and the others lying on the ground would probably be easier than killing chickens.
Since this tavern, which held countless memories of laughter and joy, had already been reduced to ruins by the battle, she absolutely did not want these familiar faces, so alive in her memories, to eventually become cold corpses among those ruins.
They were all pirates burdened with bad reputations.
Perhaps they had cruel sides hidden in places others never saw.
But at least in Foosha Village, and in front of her, Makino, they were people of flesh and blood.
Very, very good people.
If her life could be exchanged for theirs, then it was worth it.
"Brother Sanji, we're done here. It's time to go back."
Smiling, Shirahoshi turned around.
Naturally, she reached out her fair hand and tightly held the trembling hand Makino offered on her own.
"Yeah, got it. Finally leaving. Having to hold back during a fight is really annoying."
Sanji blew out a thick cloud of smoke.
He and Beckman stopped fighting and stepped back at the same time with perfect understanding.
Then he lifted his right leg and slashed through empty space.
Buzz!
A spatial gate giving off a strange glow, more than two people tall, appeared out of nowhere before them.
Seeing this doorway leading into the unknown, Makino resisted the urge to look back.
She did not look at Shanks' grief-stricken expression one last time.
Instead, she tightened her grip on Shirahoshi's hand and stepped through the gate without hesitation.
This matter had not begun because of her.
But if it could end because of her, that was enough.
Sanji and Ace had no intention of showing off or lingering.
They simply followed in silence and stepped through the spatial gate as well.
Everything had happened too quickly.
So quickly that it felt as though these three young people standing at the top of the world had crossed half the globe to arrive at this remote island in the East Blue, not for Luffy, not to cause trouble for the Red Hair Pirates, but merely to take away Makino, this insignificant Chosen Princess.
As the gate closed and vanished, the sea breeze once again swept freely across the ruined land.
"DAMN IT!"
A cry filled with despair suddenly erupted from the silent ruins.
Shanks dropped heavily to one knee.
His single hand clenched into a fist as he slammed it into the ground like a trapped beast driven into a corner.
Boom!
Centered on his fist, violent Conqueror's Haki burst out.
The shattered ground within dozens of meters cracked apart like a spiderweb.
Lowering his head, he clenched his teeth so tightly that blood flowed from the corner of his mouth.
More than anyone else, he understood that the real reason Shirahoshi and the others had come here with such fanfare today was because of them and the recently departed Luffy.
Yet they had not killed them.
Nor had they shown any intention of chasing Luffy.
They had merely appeared before them and carried out everything that happened today as a form of humiliation.
By taking away Makino, an innocent civilian, in a manner that bordered on mockery, they had delivered the coldest warning possible in front of the entire world and right before their eyes.
This was the price they had to pay for daring to resist the World Government.
It was worse than death.
But... what could they do?
They could do nothing.
Just three young people had nearly left their entire crew without the power to resist.
Most importantly, Shirahoshi, who was clearly the strongest among them, had never even made a move.
Before an absolute gap in power, the strength he had always taken pride in was nothing more than a joke.
He was like a useless coward watching a bully drag away his wife by force.
Other than pounding the ground in helpless rage among the ruins, he could only swallow this unbearable fate.
Without enough strength, in the end, one could only be left at the mercy of others.