Inside the dimly lit room.
A deep voice crackled from the Den Den Mushi. "Is it done?"
Carlo responded slowly, drawing out the words. "It's done~ my lord."
A quiet chuckle echoed from the other end. "Well done. Your reward is ready. I'll hand it to you myself when we meet."
Carlo's lips curled into a smile. "Thank you~ my lord~"
After a brief pause, he added with a hint of sarcasm, "But… Vice Admiral Sakazuki, don't you think this whole dark setting and cryptic dialogue makes us sound like villains?"
The raspy voice disappeared, replaced by Sakazuki's usual tone. "It's called setting the atmosphere."
He continued matter-of-factly, "You're currently a secret informant leaking intel from within the Marines, and this kind of tone and dialogue fits the role. You really don't have a sense of humor."
Inside the room, Carlo rubbed his nose with a helpless look.
'What do you mean I'm one leaking intel? Wasn't that your order? And you, of all people, lecturing me about humor… unbelievable…'
"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Vice Admiral, you're in a surprisingly good mood. You even made a joke."
The snail in Carlo's hand mimicked Sakazuki's faint smile, and his voice followed. "Of course. This operation's outcome far exceeded expectations. Hurry back. I've got a gift for you."
Carlo chuckled. "Got it."
After ending the call, he stepped out the door and gave his cloak a swift pull.
Whoosh!
A sharp sound sliced through the air as his figure vanished.
...
Marine Headquarters, Sakazuki's home.
The vice admiral sat back on the sofa, hanging up the call with a restrained smirk.
The gains this time were just too great.
The original plan had been simple: leak a bit of intel, lure Shiki out, and find an opportunity to secure the Float-Float Fruit.
That was it. Just the fruit. Nothing more.
But plans never keep up with change. And people... they are unpredictable.
Who could've guessed that just a whiff of news would make Shiki bet everything he had?
In that regard, the man truly deserved his reputation as a sea-conquering pirate. That kind of boldness isn't something just anyone has.
Then there was the unexpected return of Sengoku and Garp.
Sakazuki had calculated that aside from Fleet Admiral Kong, he was the only one available to engage. With his strength, he was confident. Even if Shiki had overwhelming aerial dominance, in a head-to-head fight, the one to die would still be the pirate.
As a damage dealing tank, he could've worn down a glass cannon assassin like that eventually.
But the reappearance of Sengoku and Garp changed everything. He decided to go with the flow, and then, things turned out even more surprising than he'd imagined.
What else could he say? There's no one like the Golden Lion.
That guy really went all in.
When Sakazuki first spotted Shiki's fleet at sea, he was stunned for a moment. The scale of that fleet was clearly meant to wipe out Marineford.
The pirate's ambition, the sudden return of Sengoku and Garp—the entire plan had been turned upside down.
Well, fine. Let it all burn.
That was when Sakazuki came up with the tactic of sending the two of them in first, catching the enemy off guard with incomplete intel.
After all, when someone's under attack, their first instinct is usually to strike back or dodge. Not to stop and use Observation Haki to assess the situation before acting.
If you tried to analyze every incoming attack with Haki, you'd probably be dead before you finished deciding what to do.
So, they successfully caught Shiki off guard. And once he was out of the picture, the rest of the pirates, even high-bounty ones like Blizzard Frank, weren't a match for those two.
The difference in power was staggering.
Then came the real wild card—the old injuries of the Commander-in-Chief suddenly erupting. It flipped everything.
In the end, Sakazuki walked away with gains that were several times greater than what he'd originally planned. The long-term impact of that success was immeasurable.
It also proved something else, those complex plans that try to string things from A all the way to Z by predicting human behavior? Total nonsense.
Even a simple step from A to B had massive unpredictable variables. Shiki's recklessness, Sengoku and Garp's surprise return, the hidden power struggles in the upper ranks of the government, all of that affected a plan that was supposed to be just A to B.
Sakazuki let out a long sigh and thought, 'I'm really not cut out for playing mind games…'
He rose from the sofa, walked to the window, and gazed up at the sky.
Shiki wasn't dead. Which meant there was still a chance.
"Float-Float Fruit..."
...
Grand Line, New World.
High in the air, on the very peak of the hidden skyland known as Merveille.
The one-armed Shiki lay sprawled on a jagged cliff. After a full day and night of unconsciousness, he finally stirred.
His eyes opened slowly, dazed and unfocused. Blinding sunlight stabbed at his vision, and the sharp pain coursing through his body yanked him back to reality.
Fragments of what he saw before blacking out flashed in his mind. His right hand groped along the ground until it grasped his only remaining famed sword—Kogarashi.
"Huff… huff…"
The pain was so intense that Shiki could barely breathe.
"I'm… huff… I'm the one and only… Shiki!!!"
A sudden blast of Conqueror's Haki erupted from his battered frame—raw and violent, a declaration that he was still alive and still defiant.
As if he had to prove something, he didn't rely on his Devil Fruit powers. Instead, he gritted through the agony, drove his sword into the ground, and hauled himself upright through sheer brute strength.
Overwhelming Haki flooded out, shaking the island and startling the massive beasts grazing peacefully—creatures towering hundreds, even thousands of meters tall.
Shiki stared at them, eyes burning. In that moment, a new plan began to take shape in his mind.
His twisted face contorted into a mad, wild grin. And then, he laughed.
"Shihahaha! You think this is enough to bring me down? This? This is nothing but a pebble on the path to my conquest of the world! One day, you'll all pay the price! Shihahahahahaha!!!"
His laughter thundered across the sky, carried by waves of violent Haki. Above him, a giant lion's silhouette seemed to shimmer in the air.
Nothing could bring him down.
The one-armed Shiki looked out over the land, at those looming "treasures" waiting to be tamed.
His voice was low, grim, and filled with vengeance.
"Just wait. Marines..."
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