Marine Headquarters, Marineford.
The Marine hospital.
"You two are unbelievable. You were colleagues, for goodness' sake. Even if you had to fight, did you really need to go this far?"
Sengoku glared furiously at the two Admirals lying in their hospital beds, both wrapped from head to toe in bandages.
"One of you has widespread frostbite and tissue necrosis. At least that'll recover with time. But the other one? Severe burns across half his body and an entire leg gone!"
He jabbed a finger at them.
"Were you fighting over the position of Fleet Admiral, or were you trying to help the pirates cripple the Marines' fighting strength?!"
Aokiji tried to force himself upright, ice slowly gathering around the stump of his left leg to form a prosthetic.
Akainu also tightened his jaw, preparing to explain.
Before either could speak, Sengoku shoved Aokiji back onto the bed, snapped off the newly formed ice leg, broke it into two pieces with a crack, and stuffed one into each Admiral's mouth.
"Both of you, lie down and recover!"
"With injuries this serious, anyone else would be bedridden for a year or more. Even with your bodies, you'll still need at least a month or two of proper rest! The Marines can't afford to wait that long!"
Sengoku suddenly pointed toward the door.
"Fortunately, I found someone to clean up your mess."
The door opened.
Standing outside was Trafalgar Law, whom Sengoku had urgently summoned after Law finally escaped Totto Land's waters not long ago.
"PIRATE!"
Two furious roars exploded simultaneously.
The two men who had supposedly been unable to move sprang up in an instant.
Magma surged around Akainu, immediately evaporating the ice in his mouth as the heat burned through his bandages.
Freezing air swept across half the room from Aokiji, covering the walls in thick frost.
"Both of you, stop!"
Sengoku stepped forward and slammed an Armament Haki-coated fist into each of their heads, forcing them straight back into their beds.
"This is Marine Headquarters! Do you think he could walk in here without my permission?"
He glared at them.
"Trafalgar Law is currently a candidate for the Seven Warlords of the Sea. I swallowed my pride and personally invited him here to treat you, so behave yourselves!"
Aokiji looked helplessly at Sengoku as the old man fumed in front of them.
'Why does he look more and more like his unreliable mentor, Garp? Does everyone become like this when they get old?'
Akainu stubbornly forced himself upright again, his voice hard.
"So what if he's a Warlord? He's still a pirate! I refuse to accept treatment from a pirate!"
"Don't push your luck. Lie down!"
Sengoku shoved him back onto the bed as the full pressure of the Fleet Admiral rolled through the room.
"Don't think winning that fight already makes you Fleet Admiral. Until the transfer ceremony is complete, you're still an Admiral."
"And I am still the Fleet Admiral—your superior!"
He turned toward Law.
"Law, begin."
"Yeah, I know."
Law walked in with his arms folded, a hint of mockery in his voice.
"I never expected the mighty Fleet Admiral to summon me from so far away just to patch up these two. But you remember my payment, don't you?"
"Naturally. Your conditions have already been approved," Sengoku replied with a nod.
Law's price was an exemption from the share of his earnings normally surrendered after becoming a Warlord, along with the right to enter and leave Marineford freely.
Sengoku had already reported both Law's appointment and those two conditions to the World Government.
Given the extraordinary value of the Op-Op Fruit, the Five Elders had not made things difficult and approved his demands immediately.
Law, however, still knew nothing about the upcoming relocation of Marine Headquarters.
That meant his request for free access to Marineford would soon become completely meaningless.
...
Time passed slowly.
Under Law's treatment, wounds that should have taken months to heal were properly repaired.
With some quiet recovery afterward, both men would eventually return to full strength.
Only Aokiji's missing leg remained.
Law looked at the empty trouser leg and asked, "Want me to attach another one?"
"No need. I'll leave it like this."
Since Aokiji refused, Law did not press him.
After briefly speaking with Sengoku, he left the room.
Once only the three of them remained, Sengoku swept the entire hospital room with Observation Haki.
After confirming there were no outsiders or listening devices, he looked at the two Admirals with unprecedented seriousness.
"Hey, Sakazuki. Stop looking at me like that."
Sengoku sat before them with his arms folded.
"I know you have problems with Law, but you're about to become Fleet Admiral. You can't keep acting as aggressively as you did when you were only an Admiral."
"You'll have to consider the Marines as a whole, not fixate only on the pirate standing in front of you. And above us, there are still those old bastards, the Five Elders."
"Take Drake from SWORD. Publicly, he's a pirate, but in reality, he's still one of ours. Every major faction has people like that, and the Marines have never lacked undercover agents operating among pirates."
"You should both remember Commander Rosinante, who used to serve under me. He was also Corazon of the Donquixote Family and one of our undercover officers. Unfortunately, he died years ago."
"These matters are Marine secrets, but there's no harm in telling you now."
"So that's the important secret you mentioned earlier?" Aokiji asked slowly.
"Of course not."
Sengoku hurriedly waved a hand.
"That was only an example—a warning, so neither of you explodes when I tell you the real thing."
"Go ahead, Fleet Admiral Sengoku," Aokiji said, leaning back against the headboard. "We're Admirals who've undergone strict training. We won't lose control of our emotions that easily."
Akainu merely snorted and turned his head away.
Sengoku cleared his throat, lowered his voice, and spoke one deliberate word at a time.
"The truth is, several months ago, we sent a Marine undercover among this generation of Worst Generation pirates. Even Drake, SWORD's captain, knows nothing about it, because this person's identity is far too unusual."
"The original plan was for him to infiltrate an Emperor's faction and coordinate with Drake. But the Summit War disrupted the balance of the entire world, forcing us to adjust his mission."
"You don't need to know the remaining details yet. But you must understand that his name can never be leaked to anyone."
Sengoku's gaze passed over both men, his tone growing heavier.
"That man is Chad Cain—the rising star of the New World who has joined four pirate crews in succession and overwhelmed the rest of the new generation."
The instant those words fell, the air inside the hospital room froze completely.
Akainu shot upright, his pupils shrinking violently.
Magma erupted uncontrollably around his body, and the scorching blast overturned the bedside cabinet.
Even the edge of the steel bed began glowing red.
"What?! That bastard?!"
He stared at Sengoku, his voice filled with furious disbelief and shock.
"You mean the pirate you've been paying special attention to—the one who joined three Emperor crews and possesses that so-called 'importance'—is one of ours?! Fleet Admiral Sengoku, do you even realize what you're saying?!"
On the other side, Aokiji instinctively pressed a hand to his forehead.
The room seemed to spin around him.
Even the confusion he had felt after losing at Punk Hazard was blown apart by this earth-shattering revelation.
"I knew you'd react like this!"
Veins bulged across Sengoku's forehead as he pinned down Akainu before the man could destroy the entire room.
"Calm down! This is one of the Marines' highest-level secrets! Even the World Government doesn't know!"
He grabbed a nearby potted plant and shoved it into Akainu's still-roaring mouth.
"Control your temperature! Treat this plant as if it were one of the civilians you're supposed to protect. Your magma is meant to destroy the parasites, not burn the flowers, pot, and everything around them!"
"That's the first lesson you need to learn after becoming Fleet Admiral!"
"You really should start growing flowers to improve your temper, Sakazuki!"
With a potted plant stuffed in his mouth, magma churned in Akainu's throat for several seconds.
In the end, he did not dare melt it.
The rage in his chest was almost bursting out.
His entire face screamed refusal and disbelief as he fell into a near breakdown.
Only a few days ago, he had fought Cain.
Not only had that bastard mocked him to his face, he had calmly escaped afterward.
And now Sengoku was telling him that they would eventually have to work together?
How was he supposed to accept that?
Once Akainu had calmed down slightly, Sengoku answered his earlier question.
"Yes, Cain has indeed joined several pirate crews. But that is precisely what gives us enough room to operate amid the chaos of the New World."
"It's the same with Fire Fist Ace, who is currently one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. Without his cooperation, the Marines could never have established themselves in the New World this quickly."
Aokiji still looked stunned as he asked,
"For a plan this large, why did neither of us hear the slightest rumor despite being Admirals?"
"Rumor? Didn't you hear what people in the Marines kept saying some time ago—that Garp's grandson had once served in the Marines? We later suppressed it as a baseless rumor. Neither of you paid any attention?"
"Hmph. I was busy hunting pirates. I had no interest in idle gossip," Akainu replied coldly, his anger not fading in the slightest.
"I… I was the same," Aokiji admitted.