Little Garden had not changed in a hundred years. It was that kind of island.
The volcanoes still erupted on the same irregular schedule that had nothing to do with anything happening below them. The prehistoric forest still pressed thick and impenetrable in every direction. The creatures that moved through it were the same creatures that had moved through it when the world was younger and the calendar meant less. Time had simply passed around Little Garden without making much impression on it.
The two figures fighting near the eastern volcano had not changed either.
Dorry, the Blue Ogre, brought his battle-axe down in a two-handed blow that shook the ground for a hundred meters in every direction. Brogy, the Red Ogre, caught it on his machete with a crash that sent birds scattering from the treeline, rolled sideways with the momentum, and came up swinging with enough force to strip bark from the nearest ancient tree. Neither of them had won a decisive victory in approximately one hundred years of continuous effort, which appeared to bother neither of them in the slightest.
At the edge of a small river well removed from the battlefield, Finn sat on a folding stool with a fishing rod in his hands and his back to the volcano. The stool was low enough that his long legs looked somewhat absurd folded in front of him. He had not moved in forty minutes.
On the hillside behind him, a triceratops lay on its side with a collection of black iron columns driven through its hide, pinning it to the earth with the neat, final quality of someone who had solved a problem efficiently and moved on. Hina stood on top of it, arms folded, watching the distant battle with professional interest.
Vergo crouched at the animal's flank with a short blade, draining the blood with the methodical competence of a man who had prepared field meals under worse conditions than this. The smell of fresh blood and volcanic sulfur drifted across the clearing. The triceratops would become dinner.
"They are considerably stronger than the giant corps at Headquarters," Hina said, studying the two colossal figures trading blows in the middle distance. "Maybe Saul could probably stand against one of them in a match. Probably. But he would not win."
Vergo glanced up briefly. "Dorry and Brogy were already major figures when Saul was still young by giant standards. A hundred years ago, each of them carried a bounty of one hundred million berries, and that was before a century of continuous combat development. Saul was barely forty at that point. By giant reckoning, he would not even have been eligible for the Giant Pirates." He returned his attention to the blade. "There is no comparison."
The trip had smoothed over the awkward geometry of Vergo's situation in a way that a formal meeting never could have managed. Three people in a remote jungle with no professional obligations and a triceratops to butcher had a way of resolving outstanding tension faster than any number of carefully worded conversations. Hina and Vergo were, at this point, on terms that resembled something like genuine ease.
Hina turned and looked at Finn's back.
"Admiral," she said. "Should we not at minimum consider detaining them? Technically they are wanted criminals."
"That bounty is a hundred years old," Finn said, without turning around. "We have been through seven or eight Fleet Admirals since those warrants were issued. I came to Little Garden to fish. If I happen to catch something that has been extinct for three thousand years elsewhere, that is a worthwhile contribution to my collection. These two are scenery. Let them perform."
"You could at least watch them."
"I am watching the water. Don't disturb me."
Hina looked at the back of his head for a moment. Then she looked back at the volcano.
She let it go.
The Giant Pirates were finished as an organization in any meaningful sense. The two men fighting below the volcano would continue fighting until one of them finally managed it, or until neither of them could anymore. Interfering with that was not the Marine's most pressing concern, and bringing either of them in would require a level of effort that was not proportionate to any practical outcome. Finn's calculus was, as usual, correct in the way that made it slightly annoying to argue with.
"Saul was promoted not long ago," Hina said after a while. "Fleet Admiral Sengoku made him Vice Admiral."
"I transferred him to command the giant corps," Finn said. "He has been working at it for more than a decade. He earned the rank." A pause. "He is good people."
The giant corps followed Finn's lead now, as a practical matter. Not through any formal declaration, but in the way that institutional loyalty worked: the people who led organizations tended to shape where those organizations pointed, and Saul had made his alignments clear over years of consistent work.
The fishing line drifted in the current.
The Marine Headquarters, as it currently stood, had settled into a particular shape. Sengoku held the Fleet Admiral's chair and operated with the deliberate distance of a man who had decided that his role was to maintain balance rather than direct outcomes. Below that, Finn's faction had become the largest single force within the institution, not through aggression but through absorption: the former dovish wing had not so much been defeated as it had simply found itself incorporated, its people gravitating toward a faction that had proved capable of achieving what the doves had theoretically wanted while also satisfying what the hawks actually demanded.
The only faction that held genuine weight against Finn's was Sakazuki's.
It was not a hostile competition. That was perhaps the most unusual thing about it. Sakazuki was blunt about his principles and consistent in his methods, and Finn respected both qualities even when they produced friction. The relationship between the two was one of the cleaner arrangements in the upper ranks: genuine mutual regard, no pretense of agreement where none existed, and a shared understanding that the argument between them was an argument about the right path rather than about power for its own sake.
The only real point of contention was the succession question, and even that was being conducted according to the rules.
The Den Den Mushi at Finn's feet rang.
He glanced down at it with mild surprise. The number attached to the signal was one he had not seen active in several years.
He set the rod against his knee, picked up the receiver, and said, "Hello."
There was a brief silence on the other end. Then, carefully: "Admiral?"
Finn smiled at the water.
"Now let me think," he said. "A familiar voice I haven't heard in quite some time. Secretive by nature, operating entirely on her own judgment, currently somewhere she is definitely not supposed to be discussing with me on an open channel." He tilted his head. "That would be Marine Intelligence Captain Nico Robin. The one who went undercover in Alabasta without filing the proper notice with her direct superior."
Another silence. Then, with the slightly deflated quality of someone caught being exactly what they are: "I apologize for that, Admiral. I should have discussed it with you first."
"Hahaha." Finn laughed once, short and genuine. "Don't worry about it. You are a subordinate, not a prisoner. You made a decision and you acted on it. How are you? The sun in Alabasta treating you well?"
"I have gotten considerably darker," Robin said.
Finn blinked. Then he laughed again, more fully this time.
He had a clear image of Robin as he knew her: the quiet Marine Captain with precise posture and skin as pale as someone who had spent most of her career indoors reading documents. Apparently several years in a desert kingdom had made some adjustments.
Before he could say anything, Robin's voice shifted, taking on the particular tone of someone presenting a professional achievement they are modestly proud of.
"I am currently serving as Crocodile's deputy. His right hand, by most measures. More trusted than any of his other subordinates."
"Crocodile does not trust anyone," Finn said.
A pause.
"Admiral," Robin said, "have you always been this precise about people?"
"I am," he said pleasantly.
"Yes. Fair." A breath. "You are correct, of course. I can feel the wariness underneath everything he gives me. There are matters he deliberately keeps from my reach, arrangements he handles personally regardless of how much he relies on me otherwise. But relative to what he extends to anyone else, it is the closest thing to trust he appears capable of." A brief silence. "Regardless. The situation in Alabasta has become considerably more complicated than a straightforward Crocodile operation."
Finn's attention sharpened slightly, though his posture didn't change.
"How so?"
"The Revolutionary Army has moved in. Based on the intelligence we have, Monkey D. Dragon himself is currently in the capital."
Finn was quiet for a moment. He turned this over.
Dragon in Alabasta.
Three or four years ago, the Marine's analysis had flagged this as a likely development. At the time, the concern had been genuine: Alabasta was a superpower by first-half Grand Line standards, with deep resources and a military tradition going back centuries. If Dragon had moved on it then, the Marine would have found ways to obstruct him.
But the timeline had shifted. Sengoku's plan for institutional independence was maturing. The three pillars of economic separation were coming into alignment. Within three to five years, the Marine would not need to worry about Dragon's organization in the same way they currently did.
And if Dragon took Alabasta now, it would take him three to five years to stabilize and consolidate a country with two million people in the capital alone and six hundred thousand standing troops. By the time he had it fully under control, the window for causing real harm to the Marine's plans would have passed.
Finn watched his fishing line.
"Is it heading toward open conflict between Crocodile and Dragon?" he asked.
"Almost certainly. But there is another complication." Robin's voice carried the subtle tension of someone managing several problems at once. "CP agents have entered the situation as well. Presumably responding to the Revolutionary Army presence."
"Of course they have," Finn said. "They don't know about our arrangement with Dragon. As far as CP is concerned, Dragon showing up anywhere is a crisis." He considered for a moment. "That is not necessarily a problem."
"It complicates the credit distribution," Robin said, with a honesty that made Finn smile.
"Hahaha. There it is." He shook his head. "Robin. You called me after several years of silence. You did not call to reminisce. What do you actually need?"
The line was quiet for a few seconds.
"Alabasta is becoming genuinely dangerous," Robin said, and her voice was quieter now, stripped of the professional framing. "Crocodile is going to lose. When that happens, the situation will be unpredictable. Several dangerous variables in the same location, and the outcome uncertain. If I have to manage an exit alone..."
"You want backup," Finn said.
"Not a full operation. I just need someone to hold the room if things go wrong."
Finn was quiet for a moment.
"I will think about it," he said.
"The intelligence value alone is substantial," Robin added.
"You are the only person I know who tries to negotiate credit while asking for help," Finn said. "Shameless." He did not wait for her to respond. "I will be in touch."
He set the receiver down.
The fishing line moved gently in the current. Somewhere beyond the treeline, Dorry's battle-axe connected with something with a crash that rolled through the ground beneath Finn's stool.
He picked up the rod again and watched the water.