The innocent wonder on those young Fish-Men's faces slowly turned to awe. They craned over the rail, breath caught, eyes widening as if the sight before them couldn't belong to the same world they'd known.
Behind them, Senor Pink watched the Marine base bloom on the horizon—vast, immovable. His feelings were complicated. As the Donquixote Family's liaison to the North Blue Fleet, he had crossed between the New World and these seas more than once. This was far from his first visit.
And yet, no matter how many times he saw it, the spectacle pried a quiet shock from him. The shabby, forgettable 321st Branch of years past had been remade—utterly—over the last two years.
City walls, over fifty meters high, lifted out of the sea and sealed the base in a ring of rock. Within, grim bastions shouldered up beneath snow-white Seagull flags. From gaping embrasures, banks of pitch-black cannon thrust outward in overlapping arcs that left no blind spots across surrounding waters—fangs and claws of a colossal beast, the reek of powder clinging to the air.
At the waterline, a single portal big enough for a battleship split the wall. The channel beyond was so dark it looked like the Styx itself—a gate to hell meant to cow intruders before the first order was barked.
Patrol ships etched white wakes around the perimeter, looping with patient menace.
From a distance, the base resembled a war behemoth, iron-blooded and indomitable—built not merely to repel, but to crush.
"This is the North Blue Marine Headquarters—the 321st Branch, directly under Marine Headquarters," Senor Pink said, exhaling a ribbon of pale smoke. His voice had roughened without his noticing.
"A branch of Headquarters?" one youth blurted.
"If a branch looks like this, what does the real Headquarters look like?" another whispered.
"Incredible…"
"Has human military power really climbed this high?"
They stared, stunned. To their narrow experience, if a mere branch carried this weight, then Marineford defied understanding.
Senor Pink didn't explain.
How could he? The 321st was no ordinary branch, and in some ways hardly tied to the Grand Line's command. Orders from Marineford might stir other seas; they did not move the North Blue.
More to the point, Marine Headquarters had no idea what this place had become.
In the North Blue, no pirate ship sailed safely without a North Blue Fleet permit. Only merchant convoys and vessels holding those documents could legally pass. Even powerful trade houses and Member States' official ships were barred from approaching within five hundred nautical miles of the 321st. Violate it, and the Fleet sank you—no parley.
Most countries in these waters made their peace with that, sweetened by handsome political contributions. Those who didn't soon met the "accidents" that change policy.
And results were results: piracy suppressed, trade stabilized, lanes secure, economies thriving. Elites and common folk alike had come to accept—many to prefer—these "regulations."
In short: the North Blue was sealed.
And the title "King of the North Blue" still loomed over these waters like a shadow that brought fear, then peace, then order.
Senor Pink drew in a breath. "Eyes up. We're entering the channel," he said, voice low. "If you don't want to be shot on sight, don't do anything sudden."
Jinbe and the others snapped straight, hardly daring to breathe. Inwardly, Senor Pink added, This is the headquarters of the North Blue Fleet—the strongest navy in the world.
He raised a signal flare and fired.
A streak of crimson tore skyward, leaving a glittering tail. Patrol ships swung toward them at once, guiding the merchantman into a guarded lane.
The walls reared as they neared, shadows swallowing the vessel by degrees.
As the channel closed around them, Jinbe—usually calm—felt a chill creep up his back. Mounted along the passage were ranks of strange, brutal-looking weapons.
"Flamethrowers. Shock-guns. Heavy machine guns," Senor Pink said, stepping to his side. "The most advanced hardware in the world, today."
Jinbe scratched at his head, lost. He'd never seen a pistol, much less this. Fish-Men didn't prize firearms; they trusted the strength in their bodies. Born warriors; the body as the final weapon.
Senor Pink saw the bafflement and unease and sighed inwardly. Explaining it wouldn't help. They'd understand in time.
These tools, which other factions would bleed for, were just gatekeepers here. The world was absurd—and brutally plain.
If these were sentries, they were already obsolete. The Fleet's newer toys were the real teeth—the laser cannons that erased targets rather than repelled them.
Still water runs deep.
They slid through a submerged corridor a hundred meters long and burst into brightness. The youths' eyes flared at a city unto itself.
Fortresses towered. Wide avenues stitched them together, cars streaking past in dustless lines. On a drill ground, figures strained under monstrous loads, their pace relentless beneath a punishing sun. Farther off: the punctuation of artillery—boom, flash, smoke—and trucks growling with ammo and arms. On a half-repaired bastion, a crane squealed up steel while powdered stone plumed. Within these walls, the world reset itself.
"Thank you for making the trip again, Senor Pink," a deep, amused voice carried across the quay as the Fish-Men gaped.
A pale blue bolt knifed down from the sky and gathered itself into a man.
Young, late twenties, crisp Marine uniform and a wind-tossed cloak; a neat handlebar mustache set above a face made for focus and command.
"Serving the Godfather is always an honor," Senor Pink said, shaking his head slightly.
He extended a gloved hand with a gentleman's smile. "Greetings, Supreme Commander Momonga."
To be continued...