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One Piece World, Jura-Tempest Federation
The day of the execution.
"Wow, look at all of them! This is incredible!!!"
Ramiris hovered cross-legged above the execution platform, staring down at the vast army spread out below with shining eyes.
"Hmph hmph! Impressive, isn't it? This is the grand army of our Jura-Tempest Federation!"
Milim stood beside her with her arms folded, radiating pride.
"Hold on." Kaito turned to her. "Milim, you are not part of the Jura-Tempest Federation. That is my army. Mine."
Milim looked at him with genuine shock.
"What?! I'm not part of the Jura-Tempest Federation?"
Rimuru pressed a hand over her face.
"You can't really say that. She does have a position, technically. It's just... unofficial."
"Wahahaha! Kai-chan, did you hear that?! I have a position!!!"
Milim lit up completely.
Kaito looked at her, looked at the sheer happiness on her face, and decided that was probably enough.
'As long as she's happy.'
She wasn't the only one with that particular position anyway. The others had official Do-Nothing status. Milim was, at most, an unofficial one.
His gaze drifted sideways to a certain cowardly dragon who was also sitting cross-legged on the execution platform, deeply absorbed in a manga and apparently unbothered by everything happening around him.
Right. Everyone currently seated on the execution platform was a member of the Do-Nothing Organization.
Five in total:
Queen of the Jura-Tempest Federation: Rimuru Tempest.
Regent of the Jura-Tempest Federation: Kaito.
Do-Nothing of the Jura-Tempest Federation: Veldora Tempest.
Unofficial Do-Nothing of the Jura-Tempest Federation: Milim Nava.
Unofficial Do-Nothing of the Jura-Tempest Federation: Labyrinth Fairy Ramiris.
They were, loosely speaking, doing what Sengoku and Garp had done at the Summit War: sitting above the battlefield and overseeing the whole thing.
Below them, five considerably more dignified chairs had been arranged. Seated in them were Izayoi Sakuya, Commander of the Imperial Guard Corps; Ultima, Commander of the Sixth Legion; Benimaru, Supreme Commander of the entire army; Zegion, Captain of the Academy Guard.
And in the fifth chair, looking like a man who had made several poor life decisions, sat Gobta, whom Kaito had deposited there purely out of mischief, and who was currently trying very hard not to make eye contact with any of the others.
The logic, by Kaito's reckoning, was straightforward. The Summit War had three Admirals presiding over it. He needed figures of comparable presence sitting visibly on display. The momentum of the occasion could not be allowed to suffer.
Behind them, not participating but present, were the deputies of the various army corps and a number of individuals with no military role whatsoever. Treyni, who had come to keep an eye on Ramiris. Kanae, Kaito's secretary. Kochou Shinobu. They were there to watch.
Below all of this, drawn up in full formation, stood the four major army corps and the Imperial Guard Corps making its first public appearance: sixty-five thousand soldiers in total. Every face was set. The entire formation breathed a quiet, settled lethality that had nothing to do with aggression and everything to do with simple readiness.
To one side, slightly removed from the main formation, the fifty thousand soldiers from Alabasta stood in their own ranks. Kaito had decided not to bring them into the actual fighting. They were good soldiers, but the gap in individual combat strength was too significant. They were here as a gesture of alliance, and they would witness the outcome.
On the distant sea and along the harbor plaza, a cluster of reporters had been specifically sought out and invited. They were holding video Den Den Mushi, eyes bright, taking in everything.
Kaito had not come here to win quietly.
[Host, exactly how many kinds of king are you trying to be at once?!]
'Tch. Mind your own business!!!'
If you won without anyone seeing it, did you really win? Returning home in glory and telling no one was like wearing embroidered robes in the dark. What was the point?
In Mary Geoise, the Gorosei watched the live broadcast with expressions like men who had bitten into something unpleasant.
"The sheer arrogance of this country. They're broadcasting it live."
"Let them." Topman Warcury's voice was measured and cold. "It's an opportunity. Every faction out there looking for a reason to move against the World Government will watch what happens to the Jura-Tempest Federation today. Let them see what we send."
Shepherd Ju Peter laid out the numbers.
Ten elite CP0 agents, equivalent in combined strength to seven high-grade Vice Admirals, two Admiral candidates, and one Admiral-class combatant. Two Admirals and ten Vice Admirals from the Marines directly. Fifty thousand elite Marine soldiers drawn from postings across the world.
"If we hadn't lost every single CP agent we sent to investigate this country without explanation, we wouldn't be in such an uncomfortable position to begin with," Marcus Mars said with a grim expression. "We're deploying a fleet like this to neutralize one country in the first half of the Grand Line. It shouldn't have come to this."
The others didn't disagree. With this lineup, frankly speaking, any of the Four Emperors would be in serious trouble. And they were using it to deal with a nation that, by all conventional metrics, had no business being this difficult.
If Sengoku hadn't been so insistent about the threat level, they would have been tempted to let the Marines and the Jura-Tempest Federation wear each other down and simply pick up the pieces. As it was, the Gorosei had reluctantly reached the same conclusion Sengoku had, just from the opposite direction. Neither side wanted to spend themselves unnecessarily.
Across the New World, the usual fighting among pirate crews had gone strangely quiet.
Everyone was watching.
This was the first time in eight hundred years that a nation had openly defied the World Government, gone on record about it, and then invited the world to watch what happened next. The brazenness of it surpassed even the Rocks Pirates. What had happened at God Valley had only ever been known to a handful of people. This was happening in front of everyone.
If Smulet died today, the World Government's standing would not recover from it easily.
Revolutionary Army Headquarters, Baltigo
"Commander. What's your read on how this ends?"
A staff officer was looking at the display showing the Jura-Tempest Federation's full battle formation, and put the question to Monkey D. Dragon with a measured expression.
Dragon was quiet for a moment.
"I can't say with certainty. But I have a feeling the outcome is going to surprise everyone."
His eyes moved to the five figures seated casually above the platform.
"I hope they win." Sabo leaned forward, something bright and genuine in his expression. "Based on everything we've been able to find out about this country, it reads like something out of a storybook. Beauty everywhere, and not just on the surface. Real beauty. The kind that holds up when you look at it closely."
"I went myself," one of the senior officials added. "I'll be honest, when I first saw the intelligence report I thought the officer had been drinking. Then I went, and it was all true."
Dragon said nothing more for a while. When he finally spoke, it was quietly, more to himself than to the room.
"Jura-Tempest Federation." A pause. "Will you be the ones who finally change something about this world?"