Chapter One
(Perspective: Captain Renzo - Marine Base, Loguetown, East Blue)
The air was heavy with the scent of salt, rain, and despair. Rain lashed the stone pavements of the Loguetown Marine base with a stubborn rhythm, each drop seeming like a tiny hammer blow against Captain Renzo's frayed nerves. It wasn't just rain; it was a miserable gray shroud suffocating the town that had witnessed the beginning and end of the Pirate King. Here, steps away from the execution platform still bearing the scars of history, the echoes of Roger's final words resonated like ghostly screams in the wind.
Renzo stood under a worn-out awning that barely protected him, cold drops seeping through a small hole to land on his collar. He watched the long line of dilapidated boats bobbing violently in the harbor, each carrying a load of drenched fools filled with dreams bigger than their patched sails. Kindling for a new era of fire, he thought bitterly as he lit a cigarette, the smoke rising and twisting to mingle with the damp fog. The acrid smell of tobacco was scant consolation against the rising stench of decay from those ships, the smell of poverty and delusion.
"Captain!" shouted the young recruit Koby as he hurried towards him, his breath misting in the cold air. His face, which hadn't yet lost its rural innocence, was pale and his eyes were wide. "We caught three more, sir. They were trying to buy a rusty cannon from an eccentric old man in the back alleys. One could barely lift a training sword, and they were arguing about who would be captain when they found the 'One Piece'!" His voice held a mixture of ridicule and disbelief.
Renzo exhaled his cigarette smoke slowly, the gray fumes curling around his grim face. He felt the familiar headache pulsing behind his temples, its rhythm matching the drumming of the rain. Dozens, maybe hundreds, like them every week. Farmers leaving their plows, fishermen selling their nets, servants fleeing their masters – all possessed by Roger's false promise of wealth, glory, and absolute freedom. They clogged the passageways, consumed meager rations, and filled the base's temporary cells, which reeked of sweat and urine. Worse still, they distracted his soldiers—his tired, undermanned soldiers—from the real wolves that had begun to prowl the waters, using this chaos as cover. Real pirates, with hard eyes and hands accustomed to killing.
"Throw them in with the rest, Koby," Renzo said, his voice hoarse, barely audible above the drone of the rain. He no longer had the energy to shout or even reprimand. "Interrogate them briefly, confiscate any ridiculous maps they have, then put them in the holding cell. And make sure, for the thousandth time, to double the guard on the armory. I don't want to hear that one of these morons managed to steal even a water pistol."
Koby saluted, confusion still etched on his face, then turned and ran back into the rain. Renzo watched him disappear into the thick fog. He felt a fleeting pity for the young man. Koby was new, still holding onto some naive idealism about Marine justice and its ability to impose order. He hadn't yet seen the depth of the rot that was beginning to spread.
Renzo turned back towards the sea, the angry gray waves crashing against the breakwaters in violent bursts. He heard the distant horn of a warship, a mournful note lost in the desolation. This wasn't just rebellion, not just an increase in crime. It was more like a spiritual sickness, an intellectual contagion spreading faster than any plague. Roger's words were a virus that had infected the world, and the Marines, with all their warships, cannons, and admirals, were just a bewildered doctor trying to treat a tsunami with a bandage. How do you fight an idea? How do you kill a dream planted in the hearts of millions? He had no answers, and that scared him more than any pirate fleet.
(Perspective: Fleet Admiral Sengoku - Marine Headquarters, Marineford)
The operations room at Marine Headquarters in Marineford was a hive of frantic activity, but a hive under immense pressure. The ringing of dozens of Den Den Mushi in various patterns—urgent reports, support requests, order confirmations—created a constant background noise that hadn't subsided in weeks. Officers, with tired faces and bloodshot eyes, moved quickly between massive map tables, updating known fleet positions and marking new threats that appeared like scattered ink blots on the world's canvas. The strong smell of coffee and old paper mingled with the faint scent of sweat from continuous work.
Sengoku "the Buddha" sat behind his heavy dark wood desk, his shoulders slightly slumped under the weight of responsibility. Reports were stacked before him to an alarming height, each sheet representing a new crisis, a new failure to contain the chaos. The numbers were stark, unforgiving. East Blue, once considered the weakest of the seas, was witnessing an unprecedented explosion of piracy. West Blue suffered from organized attacks on trade routes. North Blue simmered with conflicts between minor warlords now flying pirate flags. And South Blue... was like a Wild West on water. As for the Grand Line, that vital artery of the world, it had become a frantic race into the unknown, each day bringing news of new pirates, some alarmingly powerful, fighting, competing, and carving their way toward the legendary second half.
"Garp!" Sengoku's voice boomed through the room, momentarily cutting through the noise. Several officers glanced up curiously before quickly returning to their work.
Vice Admiral Garp "the Hero" entered the room with his usual confident stride, wearing his famous white jacket. He was audibly munching on a handful of rice crackers with a carelessness that seemed entirely out of place in the tense atmosphere. Cracker crumbs dusted his chest like snow.
"Yes, yes, I'm here, Sengoku. What's got you yelling like that? Did we run out of tea?" Garp said as he headed towards Sengoku's desk.
Sengoku gestured with a hand slightly trembling with anger towards the pile of reports. "Look at this, Garp! Look at the chaos your old friend unleashed with his final words! He's pushed the world to the brink! Tens of thousands of fools sailing off in search of a fantasy, while the real killers grow stronger in the shadows!"
Garp swallowed the last cracker piece, his expression shifting slightly, lines of seriousness appearing around his eyes. "Hmph. Don't underestimate dreams, Sengoku, not even the dreams of fools. But you're right, Roger gave them too strong a push. The solution is simple: crush them. Crush the big ones before they get bigger, and make an example of the small fry."
Sengoku slammed his fist on the desk, making a muffled thud. "Crushing requires concentrated force, Garp! Don't you understand? Our fleets are spread thin like raindrops in an ocean! Every base is screaming for support. Every island is demanding protection. We can't simply 'crush' every ambitious pirate who raises a black flag! This isn't a battle that can be won by brute force alone. It's a war on countless fronts, against an enemy sometimes invisible, an enemy that feeds on the very chaos we create trying to suppress it!"
Sengoku closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, trying to regain his usual Buddhist calm. He felt the headache pulsing at his temples. Their creed, "Absolute Justice," now seemed like a heavy, cracked shield, incapable of protecting them from this new type of war. They needed a strategy, a vision that went beyond mere violent reaction. They needed a mind... a different kind of mind.
Cassian. The name came back to him again, this time with greater force. The quiet Vice Admiral rarely spoke in meetings, but when he did, his words were precise, considered, and often offered a cold, logical perspective the leadership had frequently ignored in favor of more direct solutions. His recent reports analyzing pirate motivations and patterns of proliferation were disturbingly accurate. Maybe... maybe it was time to give that kind of thinking a chance. Even if his ideas seemed... unconventional.
(Perspective: Vice Admiral Cassian - His Office, Marineford)
Vice Admiral Cassian's office was an oasis of calm order in the heart of the storm engulfing Marineford. The walls were pale gray, the furniture functional and devoid of any personal touch. No family photos, no mementos from past battles, only the necessary tools for his work: precise nautical charts pinned to the walls, a clean metal desk holding only a simple desk lamp and a silent black Den Den Mushi, and steel shelves filled with meticulously organized folders sorted by region and topic. Even the air in the room seemed cooler and more controlled than outside.
Cassian sat with a straight back, reviewing a detailed intelligence summary on the massive increase in attempts to cross Reverse Mountain. The numbers didn't surprise him. They aligned with the analytical models he had developed weeks ago. Roger's words weren't just a spontaneous battle cry; they were a calculated move by a man who knew how to move the world even as he faced death. It wasn't just about the treasure, but about shattering the shackles of the old order, opening the door to an era of creative—or destructive, depending on your perspective—chaos.
He saw the Marines' reaction as predictable but doomed to fail in the long run. Increasing patrols was like adding more guards to a graveyard after the ghosts had already escaped. Mass arrests filled the prisons but didn't extinguish the dream. Shows of force instilled fear in some but provoked defiance in the more dangerous others. They were treating the symptoms—the rampant piracy—while ignoring the root disease: the loss of faith in the World Government's ability to offer a better future than the dream Roger presented.
Cassian ran a slender finger along the winding line of the Grand Line on the map. Military power was a necessary tool, but not the only one, and not always the most effective. It was like a hammer in a surgeon's hand. There were other tools in the strategic toolbox, tools requiring precision and a deeper understanding of human nature: accurate intelligence, deliberate disinformation, and exploiting the vanity, greed, and fear that motivated these pirates. If chaos was the new current, he thought with utter coldness, don't try to swim against it. Find the undercurrents, build dams in the right places, and channel the flood to drown itself.
A knock sounded on the door, quiet but insistent. His young adjutant, Lieutenant Hex, entered and saluted sharply. Hex's face was slightly pale, his eyes holding a flicker of suppressed excitement.
"Vice Admiral Cassian, sir," Hex said, his voice steady but tinged with anticipation. "I just received an encrypted call. Fleet Admiral Sengoku requests your presence in the central command office immediately. The message emphasized 'immediately,' sir."
Cassian raised his head slowly, his calm gray eyes revealing no internal reaction. He showed no sign of surprise or even strong curiosity. He had expected this moment, in one form or another. He gave a single, decisive nod. "Understood, Lieutenant. Inform him I am on my way."
Cassian stood up with a smooth, controlled movement. He straightened non-existent creases in the crisp white jacket bearing his rank. Perhaps, finally, the high command realized that the old methods were no longer sufficient. Perhaps this was the moment he could begin implementing his vision, attempting to engineer a new order from the womb of this growing chaos. It was a monumental task, fraught with risk, perhaps even impossible. But for a mind like Cassian's, impossible challenges were the most interesting.
End of chapter 1
Note: just to let you know I'm not that good in English so I use translator so you might notice that there are spelling mistake or punctuation error or things like that