[are you kidding me??]
[a Yonko crew marching right under the World Government's nose?!]
[did i mishear or did Red-Hair lose his mind]
[if Marines are just a subordinate arm, doesn't that mean the Government is even stronger?]
[this is sheep-walking-into-a-tiger-den behavior]
[how much face does Shanks even have to pull this off??]
Eight million viewers boiled over. Xiao-Kaka stared at Lucky Roux, worry flickering in her eyes.
Roux caught it, then grinned. "On the Red Force, you don't doubt the captain's call."
He scratched his cheek. "Mm… he can be an idiot sometimes, but—yeah—trust his pull."
"Trust his… pull?" Kaka rolled her eyes.
World Government—even just hearing the name, she pictured a colossus spanning the seas. Marines were its branch office. And they'd give Red-Hair face?
Sounded like a joke.
But she didn't push it. In a pirate crew there was an unspoken law: the captain is the core. Once the order drops, you follow—right or wrong. Even if the road ahead is a dead end, you walk it together.
That's what a pirate crew is.
[why am i low-key excited tho]
[same—how do you pass under the Government's eyelids with a whole Yonko fleet??]
[no way, unless the Government is a paper tiger and the Marines are trash (lol they aren't)]
[one-hundred-seventy member nations doesn't scream weak]
The chat split: blind faith in Red-Hair from a few; skepticism from many more.
Kaka skimmed a few lines, then shut chat and went back to training. After she'd eaten the Rain-Rain Fruit (Logia), Shanks and Beckman drew up a plan: bodywork and fruit control first.
Secretly, Kaka felt Devil Fruits were the real treasures—why not lean into it? But the answer from Shanks's camp had been firm: abilities are tools; the body is the foundation.
So she pushed through drills. After a day and a night, her bar nudged up—Lv. 9 (10%). At that pace she'd hit Lv. 10 within ten days. She was satisfied.
As she trained, viewers bled out of her room into the Four-Stream joint channel to spread the news. Sword-Shadow Flow and Little Fisherman both heard that Red-Hair planned to cross Mariejois; they were shocked, but lacked the context to grasp how big that was.
One person did.
"What? Red-Hair's going through the Holy Land to return to the New World?"
East Blue, Loguetown Marine Branch.
Pre-dawn in the real world; deep night in-game. White-Robed Drunkard hadn't stopped. He kept cutting drills, blade rising and falling under moonlit sweat.
He'd been infected by Tashigi's reverence for famous blades—and her warnings. Some swordsmen, even after earning rare blades, couldn't keep them. Only the strong deserved strong swords.
So even at this hour, he trained.
Now, reading chat flood his overlay, he froze.
What were the Marines, really? Not the job description—the power. With his new Lv. 5 and Swordsmanship: Beginner, he still couldn't touch Tashigi. Their "spar" earlier had been her testing him; at full strength she was far beyond him.
And Tashigi called Smoker, the Loguetown branch chief, "very, very strong."
And Smoker was just a Captain.
What about Commodores, Rear Admirals, Vice Admirals, Admirals… the Fleet Admiral?
And above them, the World Government?
The gulf made his scalp prickle.
He sheathed Seijiu with a click and jogged toward the training field's far end where Tashigi still practiced among a scatter of night-owls.
"Tashigi, ma'am."
She slowed, amusement in her eyes. "What, another bout?"
He'd challenged her several times today and been folded every time. Surely he wasn't—
He shook his head, inhaled. "Do you know Holy Land Mariejois?"
Her gaze sharpened. "Of course. Headquarters of the World Government, where the—"
She cut herself off, studying him. "Why are you asking?"
Drunkard didn't mention Red-Hair. He played it off. "I want to know… how strong the World Government is."
"How strong…?"
Tashigi repeated the words, eyes going a little distant.
"I… I don't actually know."
◇ I'll be dropping one bonus chapters for every 10 reviews. comment
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on P@treon if you're interested: patreon.com/HorizonStudios0