Marine Headquarters, Fleet Admiral's Office.
A heavy air pressure hung over the room.
Days had passed since the tragedy, but the grief and rage hadn't faded, instead, they had hardened into a suffocating, restless urgency.
Sengoku's desk was buried beneath piles of intelligence reports on Edward Weevil. Yet most of them were vague, contradictory, or flat-out useless.
Kizaru's failure to bring back results only deepened the sense of helplessness.
The enemy had vanished like a ghost into the sea, leaving behind nothing but humiliation, and a fury the Marines had nowhere to vent.
Garp stood silently by the window, staring at the training yard below, where the number of recruits had clearly dwindled, and their morale sagged. His fists were clenched tight.
Vice Admiral Tsuru rapidly flipped through reports from across the seas, hoping to find even the faintest clue in the endless flood of information.
Then-
The office's heavy wooden door creaked open. Not briskly. Not properly. Just a slow, almost reluctant "squeak," leaving a small crack.
The sound itself was strange.
Normally, anyone entering the Fleet Admiral's office would either knock hurriedly or be formally announced by an adjutant.
No one, ever, entered in a way that made it sound like even the door couldn't be bothered to open all the way.
All three officers lifted their heads at once, eyes sharp and wary, and froze.
Standing in the doorway was a man who should never have been there voluntarily.
Renzo.
Same wrinkled Commodore's uniform, hair that looked like a bird's nest, and his trademark dead-fish eyes, half-open, like he'd just rolled out of bed.
But he was here.
Not passing by.
Not sleepwalking.
Actually standing in the Fleet Admiral's office, of his own accord.
That alone was more shocking than seeing the sun rise from the west.
Sengoku unconsciously pushed up his glasses, wondering if fatigue had finally made him hallucinate.
Garp turned fully around, his face frozen in disbelief.
Tsuru put her papers down, her normally calm eyes showing a rare flicker of astonishment.
Renzo looked deeply uncomfortable amid the office's tension and seriousness. Every cell in his body screamed, This place is trouble. I want to leave immediately.
It took visible effort for him not to turn around and walk out. He shuffled in slowly, his steps as light and weak as if he were walking on clouds.
"...Fleet Admiral."
His voice was dry, heavy with fatigue and an awkward attempt at communication that clearly didn't come naturally.
Sengoku finally found his voice, disbelief dripping from every word, "Renzo? What is it you need?"
He honestly couldn't imagine what could drive this lazy bastard to walk in here of his own will.
Maybe the dorm air conditioner broke? The cafeteria portions shrank?
Renzo didn't answer right away. It was clear there was a battle going on inside him, his natural laziness desperately trying to stop whatever words were about to come out next.
He was silent for several seconds, which, to the others in the room, felt like an eternity.
Finally, as if it took all the energy he'd have for the entire month, he spoke, voice strained:
"...That Edward Weevil guy."
The name came out clumsily, like he was chewing on a rock.
"He's too noisy."
"...?"
All three of them had question marks pop up over their heads.
'Too noisy? What kind of evaluation was that?'
'Did he mean the sound of the massacre?'
Renzo frowned slightly, clearly realizing his phrasing wasn't quite right. He tried to find better words for the cold, sticky annoyance that had been bothering him for days.
"He made everything all messy. Crying, yelling... it's so loud I can't even sleep properly."
His eyes flicked briefly toward Tsuru, then quickly away, as he mumbled, even quieter:
"...Ain's been really noisy too."
The "noise" he spoke of obviously wasn't literal.
He meant the thick, heavy waves of grief and despair that had flooded the entire
Headquarters since the tragedy, especially around Ain.
Those emotions polluted the peaceful atmosphere he relied on to exist.
"And think about it," he went on flatly, "If that guy ever showed up in Marineford and made a mess here too, that'd be a huge pain."
"The dorms might collapse. The cafeteria could get wrecked. Maybe even my bed would be gone."
From pure self-interest and the desire to avoid inconvenience, he'd somehow reasoned his way to the same conclusion that terrified the entire Navy.
And then came his decision.
His expression twisted, like he was about to bite into a lemon, but there was a weird, resigned finality in his tone when he lifted his head and said:
"So, I'll go deal with him."
Silence.
Absolute silence.
You could hear a pin drop in the Fleet Admiral's office.
Sengoku's mouth hung open; his glasses had slid halfway down his nose.
Garp's finger, halfway to his nose, froze midair, as if he'd just seen a flying pig and a dancing goat at the same time.
Tsuru's hand stopped mid-sip, her tea rippling slightly, a visible reflection of her shock.
Their minds collectively crashed.
Renzo?
That Renzo?
The one who thought walking was tiring?
The one who fell asleep standing up at his promotion ceremony?
The one Sengoku had to threaten with "no food or dorm" just to make him go on missions?
That Renzo now wanted to take on a murderous pirate who had annihilated Zephyr's training ship and vanished even from Kizaru's pursuit,
All because he was "too noisy"?
This wasn't just the sun rising from the west. The entire solar system must have flipped upside down.
It took Sengoku over ten seconds before he finally gasped for air, like he'd been underwater.
His voice cracked.
"Y-You said what? You're volunteering to capture Edward Weevil?"
Renzo's face clearly said, isn't it obvious? Why make me repeat it? So annoying.
But he nodded anyway.
"Yeah," he added flatly.
"The sooner the better. The longer it drags, the more annoying it gets."
That was too much for Garp. He burst out laughing.
"Bwahahaha!! Wahahahaha!!!"
He was pounding his chest, tears streaming down his face.
"Kid! Do you even know what you're saying?! That guy- he-"
His laughter faltered. The image of Zephyr's ruined arm came to mind, and his tone softened into something between a sigh and a chuckle.
Tsuru was the first to regain composure.
She set down her cup and gave Renzo a piercing stare, searching his face for any trace of a joke, a whim, or recklessness.
But there was none, only impatience, and a kind of weary disgust toward a world that refused to stay quiet.
And suddenly, she understood.
To Renzo, Edward Weevil wasn't an enemy or a mission, he was a malfunctioning noise machine, disrupting his comfort zone.
So instead of enduring it, he'd rather fix it permanently.
Twisted logic, but internally consistent.
"Renzo," Tsuru said evenly, voice carrying a hint of probing.
"You understand what this means, right? You'll need to sail, search, maybe fight. The target is extremely dangerous."
Renzo's face instantly twisted in pain, as though just hearing those words drained his energy.
"I know," he said miserably. "That's why I want to get it over with. Short pain's better than long pain."
He looked at Sengoku and laid out his "conditions", or rather, his bare minimum requirements:
"Give me the fastest, most stable ship. The best Log Pose. Enough food and sweets. Especially sweets."
"I'll find him, deal with him, and come back. Don't bother me with follow-up stuff."
His plan was brutally simple:
Sail out, eliminate the source of the problem as fast as possible, return to peace.
End of story.
Sengoku stared at him, his mind a storm.
Logic said it was madness, sending a man as lazy and unmotivated as Renzo on such a mission was absurd.
But another part of him, the part that knew Renzo's power was like a bug in the system, the part cornered by helplessness, screamed otherwise.
Let him go.
Maybe, just maybe, only someone who ignored all normal logic could change the situation.
And strange as it was, Renzo's motive was pure,
He simply wanted his peace and quiet back.
That, Sengoku realized, might actually be more reliable than "justice" or "revenge."
His eyes met Tsuru's. In hers, he saw the same shock, absurdity, and a spark of desperate, last-ditch hope.
"...Alright." Sengoku finally spoke, his voice hoarse but firm.
"I'll approve it."
"I'll assign you the best ship and full logistical support. Intelligence will prioritize every report related to Weevil and forward them directly to you."
"Commodore Renzo-" Sengoku stood up, his gaze solemn.
"This mission… is in your hands."
Renzo got the answer he wanted. His expression immediately shifted to mission complete, time to leave.
He turned to go, muttering lazily:
"Okay. I'm leaving."
He shuffled out of the office, leaving behind three of the Navy's highest officers staring blankly at each other.
Sengoku broke the silence first. "...Garp. Pinch me. Am I still asleep?"
Garp grunted. "I think I'm dreamin' too."
Tsuru exhaled slowly.
"Maybe… this is what they call fighting poison with poison."
Within hours, the news exploded across Marine Headquarters like a thunderclap:
"The Sloth God Renzo Volunteers to Hunt Down Whitebeard Jr., Edward Weevil!"
Every Marine who heard it had the same reaction:
"Is it April Fool's Day?"
"Who? Commodore Renzo? The Sleeping King?"
"Has the world finally gone insane?!"
But the order came straight from the Fleet Admiral's office, undeniable.
That day, Marineford was shaken to its core,
By the most absurd reason imaginable: one lazy man's annoyance.
Meanwhile, the man at the center of it all was slowly walking back to his dorm, muttering to himself:
"Better bring a soft pillow. Sleeping on a ship won't be as comfy as my bed. Ugh… what a pain."
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu