Marine Headquarters, Marineford
Admiral's Office
The room felt as though the air itself had frozen solid.
"What did you just say?" Sengoku's voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "The World's Second Most Wanted Criminal?"
He and Garp exchanged uneasy looks as the trembling messenger struggled to catch his breath.
"What exactly happened?"
"It's… it's Roger," the messenger stammered. "Gol D. Roger and his crew… they've reached the Final Island! They've completed their voyage—circumnavigated the entire world!"
The words detonated in the Admiral's office like a cannon blast.
For a heartbeat, Sengoku and Garp stood as though turned to stone. Neither moved. Neither breathed. The silence pressed down, suffocating.
Then—
"This… this can't be…" Sengoku sank back into his chair, the color draining from his face. "Roger actually found that island?"
His hands shook. A cold dread gripped his chest.
If Roger had truly reached the Final Island, then he had unearthed the greatest secret in history—the truth buried since the Void Century itself.
"Damn it!" Garp's roar shattered the silence. He slammed a fist into Sengoku's desk, splitting it clean in half. "This is all your fault!"
Sengoku blinked. "My fault—?!"
"We were so close!" Garp bellowed, veins bulging on his temples. "You dragged me back here, you pencil-pushing idiot! If you hadn't, I would've caught him!"
He slammed his fist again, the wood cracking further under the force. The terrified messenger flinched, barely keeping his footing.
Sengoku's face turned crimson. Words failed him.
Who could have predicted this?
Roger had possessed the Poneglyphs for years, and still there had been no sign of progress. Sengoku had trusted Garp to keep him cornered in the New World. Then, the one time he ordered him back… the one time…
Roger reached the end of the world.
Sengoku's jaw tightened. "Has the news spread yet?"
The messenger swallowed hard. "Y-yes, sir. The information leaked into the Underworld. The World Economic News Paper was the first to publish it. Over thirty major press networks are already printing special editions."
He hesitated. "Within half a day, the story will be everywhere."
Sengoku's eyelids twitched violently. "Where the hell was our intelligence division?! Why didn't they intercept it?!"
The messenger nearly burst into tears. "S-sir… the intelligence network was reduced last quarter. The field agents couldn't act in time."
"Reduced?" Sengoku's voice cracked like a whip. "Who the hell ordered that?!"
"You did, Admiral Sengoku… as part of the budget cuts."
Sengoku froze. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Then he slumped, one hand clutching his chest. "I'm going to die of stress one of these days…"
"And the Government's CP divisions?" he snapped, forcing the words out. "Why didn't they notice?"
"The CP agencies claim they were focused entirely on tracking the North Blue Fleet and Rogers Darren," the messenger squeaked.
Sengoku could only stare at him. "…Of course they were."
While that damned Darren was stirring up global chaos, Roger had slipped straight through the cracks.
"Admiral Sengoku, there's… one more thing."
"Spit it out before I lose my patience entirely," Sengoku growled.
The messenger took a trembling breath. "Because Gol D. Roger found the Final Island and completed his journey, he's caused an unprecedented uproar across the seas. Every newspaper, every pirate, every kingdom is talking about it."
His voice shook as he spoke the next words:
"They're calling him… the man who became the Pirate King."
---
The New World
The ocean stretched vast and glittering beneath a howling wind. Upon it sailed a ship so immense it dwarfed the waves themselves—the Moby Dick, flagship of the Whitebeard Pirates.
"Pops! Big news!"
Marco swooped down from the sky, cerulean flames folding back into his human form. His usual composure was gone; he was pale with shock, a newspaper clenched in his hand.
"Roger—he actually did it!" Marco exclaimed breathlessly. "He found the Final Island! He named it Laugh Tale!"
A stunned silence swept the deck.
Every crewman turned as Marco spread the paper open, the bold headline blazing across the page. Beneath it gleamed a new bounty poster:
"Pirate King" Gol D. Roger
Dead or Alive: 5,564,800,000 Berries
The crew gasped as one.
"Five and a half billion Berries?!"
"Unbelievable!"
"That's higher than Pops' bounty!"
"Even higher than that Rogers Darren guy!"
"So it's true—there must be something incredible on that island! Treasure beyond imagination!"
Their voices overlapped in waves of awe and disbelief.
But at the center of it all, Whitebeard sat silent on his throne-like chair, arms folded across his massive chest.
His face bore no anger, no envy—only a quiet, knowing smile.
He gazed out over the sea, where the horizon met the sky.
You finally did it, Roger.
He closed his eyes, the wind tugging gently at his coat.
Congratulations… old friend.
---
And so, on that day, the world was shaken to its core.
The Roger Pirates had conquered the Grand Line—an achievement thought impossible since the dawn of the Great Age of Piracy.
In a single instant, Gol D. Roger's name resounded across every corner of the sea.
From that day forward, the man who reached the end of the world, who claimed the treasure known as One Piece, would be hailed forever as—
The Pirate King.
To be continued...