—Broadcast—
Hoshigaki Kisame proved to be a relatively honorable individual despite his ruthless combat methods. After Charlotte Brûlée transported everyone back to the physical world from her mirror dimension, the water clone restraining her didn't continue imposing restrictions. He released the woman without incident, allowing her to rush toward her gathered family members.
Without the water clone's supervision, Sea Knight Jinbe walked toward his fellow tribesman with complete honesty, maintaining dignity despite his impending imprisonment. Both the pirates and the Marine had achieved satisfactory outcomes from this violent negotiation—they'd lost justification for continuing combat. Escalating to absolute extremes would benefit neither side, potentially triggering consequences both organizations wished to avoid.
"Brûlée, take excellent care of Katakuri," Jinbe said quietly, his voice heavy with guilt and resignation. "I feel tremendous responsibility for his condition. I will repay this family's kindness in the future, somehow."
After delivering these parting words, Jinbe leaped onto the water shark construct created by Hoshigaki Kisame. The assembled Big Mom Pirates could only watch helplessly as the two fish-men departed, swimming toward Totto Land's outer perimeter and the waiting Marine fleet beyond.
"Sister, has that fish-man traveled far enough away?" Charlotte Hikaru's childish voice emerged strained with agony.
The five-year-old girl's brows furrowed intensely, her face contorted with pain beyond anything a child should experience. Tears mixed with blood continued streaming from the slits of her tightly closed eyes, crimson tracks staining her cheeks. Forcing the Mangekyō Sharingan to operate at such intensity had brought unimaginable burden to her immature body. The only reason she'd maintained consciousness this long was willpower driven by absolute need to protect family.
"The Admiral has departed," Charlotte Brûlée confirmed, moving closer to her youngest sister.
"Good... that's... good..." Hikaru's voice faded to barely audible whisper.
The girl's physical stamina finally depleted completely beyond sustainable thresholds. The crimson Susanoo skeleton vanished from around her small frame, spiritual energy exhausted. Charlotte Hikaru lost consciousness entirely and collapsed, her small body going limp.
Fortunately, Charlotte Brûlée stood close enough to catch her sister's tender form before she struck the ground, preventing secondary injury. She cradled the child carefully, protective fury burning in her chest. This girl had saved their entire family—she would never allow Hikaru to suffer any further harm.
Charlotte Smoothie, having returned to normal size after Eight Thousand Spears' power dissipated completely, redirected her focus toward brother Charlotte Katakuri. Their external pillar absolutely could not fall at this critical juncture. If he died here, the Big Mom Pirates would fracture rapidly, organizational cohesion dissolving. Whether they could maintain their Yonko status afterward remained genuinely questionable.
"Hold on just a little longer," Charlotte Smoothie urged desperately, kneeling beside her mutilated brother. "Don't you dare die. You absolutely cannot die for this family's sake."
She encouraged him with words, attempting to awaken the man's increasingly faint will to survive. Soon, Big Mom Pirates members who'd been hiding throughout Cake Island during the invasion began converging on their location.
Everyone contributed what they could. Some siblings chose to focus medical attention on Charlotte Katakuri, applying emergency first aid to his catastrophic injuries. Others provided nutrition and care for their unconscious sister Hikaru, attempting to stabilize the child's overtaxed system. The Big Mom Pirates family couldn't bear losing both of them simultaneously—such losses would prove organizationally catastrophic.
The foundation underlying all these desperate fears traced directly to their mother's... complications.
Charlotte Linlin suffered from severe dissociative identity disorder. Her mental state switched unpredictably between radically different personalities. Sometimes she manifested as the violent, rage-filled mother they all feared. Other times she regressed to an innocent girl of perhaps eight years old. Occasionally she became a newly married young woman, giggling and flirtatious. In the most disturbing episodes, she genuinely believed herself to be a man—adopting masculine mannerisms, deepening her voice, demanding her children address her as "father."
Men, women, boys, girls, elderly personalities—Charlotte Linlin's fractured psyche had splintered into numerous distinct identities. According to meticulous records compiled by Charlotte Pudding using her photographic memory, their mother had manifested up to twenty completely different personalities within a single twenty-four-hour period.
The personalities would quarrel among themselves, competing for dominance over their shared body. Internal arguments escalated into violent physical episodes as different identities struggled for control. This made Charlotte Linlin even more dangerous than during food craving attacks—at least bulimia followed predictable patterns.
Many brothers and sisters had been unfortunately caught in the crossfire of these personality conflicts. They'd died innocently at their own mother's hands, killed by a woman who didn't even remember murdering them after different personalities assumed control. The family graveyard on Cake Island's northern shore contained dozens of graves marked only with numbers—children whose names couldn't be publicly acknowledged without revealing the truth.
Faced with this horrifying deterioration, Charlotte Katakuri had made the agonizing decision to place their mother under house arrest within the castle's central tower. It was euphemistically called "house arrest," but functionally represented imprisonment. They filled her environment with delicious food continuously, ensuring Charlotte Linlin remained too satisfied and distracted to leave the castle during her more lucid periods.
Yonko Charlotte Linlin couldn't leave Cake Island whatsoever. The Big Mom Pirates had lost their most significant external deterrent—the monstrous strength that once made enemies flee before battle even commenced. Territorial expansion had ceased entirely. The organization could only adopt defensive posturing, protecting existing holdings rather than pursuing aggressive growth.
This indirectly explained Charlotte Katakuri's increasingly aggressive behavior toward external forces. He lived in constant terror that other organizations might discover the truth about the Big Mom Pirates through careful investigation. Charlotte Linlin's personality disorder represented a secret they had to maintain at any cost. If the outside world learned their Yonko had gone completely insane, every ambitious crew in the New World would descend on Totto Land like sharks scenting blood.
Understanding this context made his protection of Sea Knight Jinbe entirely comprehensible. Everything served the singular purpose of maintaining the invincible image of the Big Mom Pirates. He'd fought a Marine Admiral to exhaustion specifically to preserve that facade. In the end, he'd brought catastrophe upon himself and become the mutilated wreck now clinging to life through sheer stubbornness.
—Broadcast - Marine Fleet—
On the other side of this tragedy, Jinbe followed his fellow tribesman onto the Marine warship and received Sea-Prism Stone handcuffs immediately upon boarding. After completing this procedural demonstration for his subordinates, Admiral Kisame dismissed all surrounding Marines. He required privacy for the conversation about to occur—matters concerning fish-men that humans shouldn't overhear.
"Jinbe, do you understand why I chose to join the Marine?" Kisame asked while simultaneously beginning to bandage his kinsman's wounds with surprising gentleness.
The question addressed the deepest mystery occupying Jinbe's thoughts since learning of Admiral Kisame's existence.
Fish-men holding high positions within the Marine—even reaching Admiral rank—would have been completely unthinkable during previous eras. The fact that Hoshigaki Kisame possessed such elevated status resulted partially from Fleet Admiral Artoria Pendragon's appreciation of his capabilities. But more fundamentally, it traced to Kisame's own desperate hunger for self-improvement beyond normal limitations.
"Even with your tremendous power, Kisame, you're probably still looked down upon within the Marine," Jinbe observed quietly, his voice carrying bitter understanding. "Even if there's no overt discrimination, covert prejudice definitely persists behind closed doors. I understand humans' worst nature far too intimately."
Jinbe thought about the days adventuring alongside Boss Tiger in the Sun Pirates—those brief years when liberation seemed genuinely achievable. If that hero hadn't been betrayed by the very humans he'd saved, he might still be alive today. His firm conviction about freeing all slaves wouldn't have been buried alongside his corpse in this new era.
After wrapping hemostatic bandages extensively across Jinbe's torso, nearly half the fish-man's body disappeared beneath white cloth. The blue-and-white appearance looked rather comical, but Hoshigaki Kisame possessed no inclination toward humor regarding such serious matters. He wanted the Sea Knight to understand a path never previously imagined—one that transcended the false dichotomy between human oppression and fish-man isolation.
"Fisher Tiger was a genuinely deserved hero," Kisame stated with absolute conviction. "I certainly cannot compare myself to such greatness. However, peaceful coexistence between humans and fish-men will never become possible while our species remains demonstrably weaker. Equality requires either mutual respect... or mutual fear."
After Fisher Tiger's death, Hoshigaki Kisame had wandered aimlessly for extended periods, lost in philosophical confusion about his purpose. By fortunate chance during this directionless period, he'd discovered a deep-sea location called the Wet Bone Forest. Within that mysterious sanctuary, he'd learned numerous techniques through dedicated training that pushed his natural talents to unprecedented heights.
When he finally surfaced again, approximately one year had passed since the catastrophic Battle of Marineford. The world's political landscape had shifted dramatically during his underwater isolation. Hoshigaki Kisame, lacking clear objectives or direction, chose to wander across the seas living a solitary existence—just himself and Samehada. Without ideals driving him forward, he'd become little more than a walking corpse, drifting aimlessly through meaningless days.
When fortune abandons someone, even drinking water causes problems. Hoshigaki Kisame had simply maintained normal swimming posture while passing a Marine fleet—he hadn't expected such innocent action to draw their attention.
After being invited aboard a warship by a Marine Admiral with surprising courtesy, he'd been brought before Artoria Pendragon herself. Following an extensive all-night conversation with this knight-like young woman who radiated genuine royal charisma, Hoshigaki Kisame found himself profoundly impressed by her vision. She spoke of merit-based advancement, species-blind justice, and building something better than the corrupt system they'd inherited.
That single conversation had set him on an unimaginable path.
In the end, Hoshigaki Kisame evolved into his current form—completely transformed into a willing instrument of the Fleet Admiral's revolutionary agenda.
"She offered you what?" Jinbe asked, genuine curiosity breaking through his resignation.
"Purpose," Kisame replied simply. "She offered me purpose when I'd lost everything else. And more importantly—she offered fish-men genuine equality, not the false promises humans have made for centuries. Under her system, we advance based on merit alone. No species restrictions. No glass ceilings. Just raw capability."
He paused, studying Jinbe's expression carefully.
"The Marine is changing, Jinbe. When you reach Still Water Prison, you'll see what I mean. Fish-men serving as officers. Merfolk in administrative positions. A world where our children won't automatically become second-class citizens simply for being born with gills."
Jinbe absorbed these words in silence, weighing them against his own bitter experiences. Fisher Tiger had died believing humans could never be trusted. Queen Otohime had lived believing peaceful coexistence was possible.
Perhaps both had been partially correct. Perhaps the answer lay not in choosing between their philosophies, but in creating sufficient strength that fish-men could negotiate from positions of genuine power rather than perpetual weakness.
"I'll consider your words," Jinbe finally said. "Though I make no promises about what conclusions I'll reach."
Kisame nodded, satisfied with this response. Planting seeds was sufficient—forcing conversion would only breed resentment.
The Marine fleet departed Totto Land's territorial waters, leaving behind a shattered family desperately trying to save their strongest warrior and conceal their Yonko's complete mental breakdown from a world that would devour them the instant weakness became public knowledge.
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