The timer kept counting.
In Mariejois, none of the Elders moved.
Saturn, who had been the calmest of them in every meeting of the last forty years, was no longer calm. The hand resting against his abdomen had begun to tremble. He had not realized it was trembling until Mars, sitting next to him, glanced at it and looked away again.
Mars, for the first time in any of their meetings, stood up.
"We need to break the broadcast."
"You cannot break the broadcast, Mars."
"We need to TRY, Saturn. We need to do SOMETHING."
"There is nothing to break. He is not using a Den Den Mushi. He is not using a satellite. He is not using a transmission system that exists in this world. There is nothing for us to break."
Mars sat back down. He did not look at the others.
Topman Warcury, who had not spoken since the broadcast began, finally did.
"....who is going to answer this."
"No one will answer this," Mars said. "No one with the answer is alive."
Saturn closed his eyes.
"Mars," he said, very quietly, "please review the list of people we have not been able to find in the last decade."
Mars went still.
In a small garden on a small island whose name was not on most maps anymore, a man with grey at the temples set down his teacup very gently.
He did not stand quickly. He had been retired for a long time, and his joints had decided some time ago that they were not going to be hurried by anyone, including their owner. He stood at the speed his joints permitted, and when he was upright he stood for a moment longer than he needed to, as if he was checking the structure of the decision he was about to make.
Sengoku had spent two days listening to a broadcast he had known was coming for thirty years.
He had spent the last hour and a half listening to a different broadcast he had not known was coming, and he had been very surprised, and he had been pleased in a way he had not allowed himself to be pleased in a very long time.
He looked at the answer panel hovering in the air of his garden, at chest height, the way a polite servant might wait with a tray.
He walked to it.
He pressed it.
In Marineford, Akainu's hand froze halfway to the new desk.
"....no."
"Marshal — "
"He WOULDN'T."
Akainu was not the only one staring at the screen. Every Marine in HQ was staring at the screen. The screen had not yet shown an answer. It was simply showing Doolittle, hovering, smile patient, hands folded.
Then the screen showed something else.
Doolittle's voice was warm. The warmth was not theatrical this time. It was the warmth of a host who had not expected this guest, and was meeting them on their terms.
{We have our correct answer.}
He paused. The pause was longer than any pause he had taken on the broadcast so far.
{Given by....Mr. Sengoku.}
The world inhaled.
In Mariejois, Saturn opened his eyes. Mars's hand went to the place at his side where, twenty years ago, a sword had hung, before they had stopped wearing swords because they had decided they no longer needed to. The sword was not there. Mars's hand stayed in the empty space anyway.
In Cross Guild's base, Crocodile, who had been about to leave the room toward the maps, stopped in the doorway. He turned around. He sat back down. He did not pick up his glass of wine.
In the New World, on the Sunny, Robin's eyes had widened to a size she had not used since Egghead.
"Sengoku," she said. "Sengoku is answering."
"WHAT??" Luffy, who had been chewing through his fourth slice of cured meat from the kitchen, dropped the slice. "Gramps's friend?? The big Buddha guy??"
"Yes."
"WHAT?? WHY?? IS HE OKAY??"
"....Luffy, he is choosing to do this."
"OKAY, BUT IS HE OKAY??"
Robin did not answer.
The screen of the world cut to a small garden far from Marineford. Sengoku stood next to the answer panel with his hands clasped behind his back and his face set the way a man's face sets when he has stopped pretending to be at peace and has decided to be useful instead.
[►Submitted Answer: A demon contract with the figure behind the Empty Throne grants the Five Elders their unageing immortality, conditional on continued service. Severing the contract would either restore them to mortal age, or kill them outright. The system does not yet specify which.]
The world did not inhale this time. The world made a small sound, all at once, that was somewhere between a gasp and the shape of every Marine in the world realizing that the Marine Hero who had retired had not retired because he was tired.
In Mariejois, Saturn made a sound that was not a word.
In a small office in Marineford, Akainu sat down heavily.
In a fortress in the western sky, Dragon turned away from his window for the second time that morning. He looked at the cot where Sabo lay. Sabo's eyes were open. Sabo had heard the answer. Sabo did not yet remember enough to know what it meant, but Sabo was old enough now to know that something had changed.
In Hachinosu, Garp stopped laughing.
He sat up on the cot of his unlocked cell, and he listened, and he closed his eyes, and he said, quietly, to no one but the room: "....Sengoku, you old idiot. You old, glorious idiot."
Doolittle did not speak for one breath.
The hosts of the world had been many in the history of the world. The hosts had their lines and their rhythms and their small theatrical moves. Doolittle had been hosting things for a very long time, in places that had not always been one piece of any one world.
He had not expected this answer.
He knew the answer. He had known it longer than most of the people in the room had been alive. He had not expected anyone to give it.
He adjusted his collar with two fingers.
When he spoke, his voice was the same voice. The host had returned. The host had not gone far. But the host was, for one sentence, slightly bare.
{Mr. Sengoku....that took courage I did not expect.}
He paused.
{Thank you.}
In a hospital island in the New World, Marco looked up sharply for the second time that morning.
He set down his coffee cup. The coffee had gone cold.
"....two," he said to no one.
He filed it.
Doolittle, on the broadcast, recovered. The smile returned in full theatrical form.
{Mr. Sengoku, before your reward, would you care to address the world? It is something of a tradition, in our format.}
Sengoku, in his garden, looked at the camera. He had not asked to be on it. He did not seem to mind that he was.
He spoke clearly. He had a voice for speaking clearly. He had used it in Marineford for many years and it had been one of the few things he had been allowed to keep when he had retired.
"I'll keep this short."
He looked at the camera.
"You all should know. I retired because I could not stomach what we were defending."
He paused.
"For thirty years I sat in meetings under Mariejois with men I respected because they had been there longer than I had, and we made decisions that were not ours to make on behalf of an authority we did not interrogate. And one day, I stopped being able to swallow it. So I left."
In Mariejois, Saturn put his face in his hands.
Sengoku was not done.
"The World Government is not held up by virtue. It is held up by an old man's pact with a thing that should not exist, and that pact has bought the Elders an unending tenure that they have used to keep the rest of us from asking the questions our great-great-grandparents tried to ask before they were silenced."
He paused.
"The pact is not unbreakable."
He paused again, longer.
"That is all I have to say."
In Marineford, Akainu had not breathed in a full minute.
In Cross Guild's base, Crocodile said one word. The word was not for anyone in the room. The word was: "....finally."
In the New World, on the Sunny, Luffy said, "Hey, Robin. Is Gramps's friend gonna be okay?"
"....I don't know, Luffy."
"Should we go save him?"
Robin looked at Luffy with the kind of look she had not given anyone in a long time.
"....yes. Probably yes."
Doolittle, on the broadcast, had been still for the duration of Sengoku's speech.
He smiled, when it was over. The smile was not theatrical.
{Mr. Sengoku, your reward time.}
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►Truth Compass — A small device that points toward the answer of one question of your choosing. Single use. The answer cannot be deceived. The compass cannot be tricked.
►Sealed Memory — Recover one suppressed memory of your choice, fully. The memory will play for you in complete sensory detail, private to you.
►Lineage Coin — Call one ally regardless of distance. They will arrive within 24 hours, by means of my choosing.
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Sengoku looked at the menu.
He looked for a long time.
The Memory was tempting. There were memories.
The Coin was tempting too. There were people he would have wanted to see.
He picked the Compass.
He said, on broadcast, with the voice of a Marine Hero who had spent thirty years learning when to wait:
"I'll save the question for later."
The world had a moment of silence after he said it.
Then it had a moment of very loud thinking, all at once, as every faction in the world began to wonder what question Sengoku had saved.
In Mariejois, Saturn looked at Mars.
"He could ask the compass to find Pythagoras."
"....yes."
"He could ask the compass to find anyone we have hidden."
"....yes."
"He could ask the compass to point at the contract."
Saturn went silent again.
In Cross Guild's base, Crocodile said, slowly, "He could ask the compass to point at the One Piece."
Buggy choked on nothing.
A small device the size of a coin appeared in Sengoku's open palm. It was brass. It was warm. It had a single needle that did not yet know which direction to point.
Sengoku closed his hand around it. He put it in the inside pocket of his coat.
He bowed, very slightly, to the camera.
He sat back down in his garden chair.
He did not pick up the teacup.
Doolittle let the silence sit. Then he swept his arm.
{And now....the Wheel.}
The Wheel appeared. The same Wheel. It spun. Doolittle tapped his foot. It slowed. It stopped.
Doolittle read it.
He laughed, a small, dry, genuine laugh. The third he had laughed today.
{Punishment this round is....."Compelled Honesty."}
He clapped twice.
{Every wrong-answerer....in the next twelve hours, the next direct question put to you by any other being....you must answer truthfully and completely. The system will know if you lie. If you lie, the truth will be told for you, in greater detail than you would have chosen. So be honest, dear players. Honesty is the cheaper option.}
Around the world, wrong-answerers' faces went pale.
In a Marine office in Loguetown, an officer who had been Marked in the previous timeline, and was Compelled in this one, looked up at his colleague who had been waiting for two months for the right moment.
"Hey," the colleague said, casually, "did you take that bribe last May?"
The officer's mouth opened.
The officer closed his mouth, very deliberately.
The officer's mouth opened again, against his will.
"....yes. I took the bribe. It was three hundred thousand Beli. I used it to pay off my brother's debt to a loan shark in the third district. I have not slept properly since."
The colleague nodded, very calmly, and walked away.
The officer sat down on the floor.
In a noble's estate on a small island in West Blue, a wife who had been waiting six years asked her husband, "Are you having an affair with my younger sister."
The husband's mouth opened.
"....yes."
The wife stood up, very calmly, picked up her wineglass, and walked out of the room.
In a back alley in Loguetown, a thief who had been beaten unconscious in another timeline (Marked in that one, Compelled here) was approached by a rival thief who had been waiting for years.
"Where do you keep the diamond."
"....I don't keep the diamond. The diamond is fake. The real diamond was stolen from me six months ago by my own apprentice. I have been pretending to still have it. The apprentice is on Sphinx Island. He is pretending to be a fisherman. His name is currently Walter."
The rival thief blinked.
"Thank you."
The rival thief left to find Walter.
In a small fishing village in East Blue, a grandmother asked her granddaughter, who had answered wrong on a whim, "Have you been telling me the truth about your boyfriend."
The granddaughter's mouth opened.
The grandmother sat very straight.
"....no, grandma."
"Tell me."
"....he is the bandit who has been hiding in our barn for three weeks. I have been bringing him food."
The grandmother stood up, picked up the slipper that had pursued the boy in another timeline, and walked toward the barn.
Across the world, the small dramas spilled out, one after another, layered on top of the still-silent throats of the Voiceless from the previous round. Some of the secrets were gentle. Some of them were not. A few of them ended marriages. A few of them ended careers. One of them began a romance, when a man asked another man a question he had wanted to ask for a very long time, and the other man was Compelled, and the answer was not the one the asker had feared.
It was, by Doolittle's standards, a very good twelve hours about to begin.
When the broadcast settled, Doolittle's smile was patient again.
{Wonderful. The world is more honest with itself this morning, and tomorrow morning, by some measure, it will be better.}
He set the cuff of his sleeve.
{And now....our third question. This one is about the figure I just mentioned. The one Mr. Sengoku named without naming. The one behind the throne nobody is supposed to see.}
The Q&A border bloomed back.
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►Who currently sits behind the Empty Throne, and how long has he been there?
Time Given: 60 Seconds
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In Mariejois, the chamber under the Holy Land had been very quiet for several minutes.
It was no longer quiet.
Saturn was on his feet, one hand still pressed against the place where the Bajrang Gun had broken something that had not yet healed, and the other hand pointing at Mars.
"DO. NOT. ANSWER. THIS."
"I wasn't GOING to answer it, Saturn — "
"DO NOT EVEN THINK OF ANSWERING IT — "
"SATURN, I AM NOT A FOOL — "
Behind the Empty Throne, the figure that had lifted one finger now lifted a second.
The room around the throne went colder.
Saturn went silent.
In a small garden far from Marineford, Sengoku sat in his chair with his hand resting against the inside pocket of his coat where a brass compass that was not yet pointing at anything had begun to feel slightly warmer than the cloth around it.
He did not press the panel.
He had used his courage for the day. He was old. He was retired. He had done his part. The compass would be for later.
He waited to see who would do this one.
In a hidden lab beneath Egghead, Pythagoras did not press the panel either. He had also used his courage for the day, and he had a single name in his head he had not yet had time to fully process, and the name was occupying a great deal of room.
In Cross Guild's base, Crocodile was looking at Mihawk and Mihawk was looking at Crocodile, and neither of them had the certainty to gamble on this question, and both of them were very aware that someone, somewhere, did.
In a fortress in the western sky, Dragon was at his window again. He had ideas. He had not committed to them. He was watching.
In a hospital island in the New World, Marco the Phoenix had walked outside. He had walked to the cliff. He was looking at the ocean.
He was no longer thinking about Pops.
He was thinking about a man in a suit who had said "Stella would be proud," and a man in a suit who had said "thank you" with the wrong amount of warmth, and Marco the Phoenix did not know the man in the suit, but Marco the Phoenix had begun to suspect that he might want to.
Doolittle, on the broadcast, hovered with his suit immaculate and his smile patient.
He did not say a word.
He did not name the figure himself.
He just watched the timer.
59....
58....
57....
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