The uproar in the conference room had a particular texture to it.
Most of the assembled kings had never been to a World Conference that went like this. Most had never been to a World Conference at all; the last one had been canceled eight years ago when Fisher Tiger burned half of Mary Geoise to the ground. They had come here expecting formalities, scheduled grievances delivered through proper channels, and the quiet ritual humiliation of being told what the coming years would look like.
They had not expected this.
And now, sitting in the noise that Finn's declaration had produced, many of them were discovering something uncomfortable: the thing they were feeling was not outrage. It was relief.
Mary Geoise had been running the same operation for centuries. The Celestial Dragon bloodline gave them the claim of divine legitimacy, and the Marine gave them the fist to back it up. Those two things together, legal authority and overwhelming force, had kept a hundred kingdoms in line through sheer accumulated weight. Not because anyone believed in it. Because no one had been willing to be the first to say they didn't.
The Heavenly Gold alone. Every kingdom in the room paid it. Taxes first, and then on top of that, the tribute, an entirely separate extraction that went not toward infrastructure or military preparedness or any service that benefited anyone in this room, but toward financing the lifestyle of people in the God's Abode who purchased human beings as decoration and complained if the delivery was slow. The math of it was visible to every royal present. None of them had said it aloud. You didn't say it aloud.
You didn't say it aloud because of Alabasta. Oldest human kingdom on earth, legitimate bloodline of the Twenty Kings, an army of millions. And now? Stripped of member-state status, its royal family in custody, its throne handed to a Warlord under World Government authorization. That was the answer to what happened when you pushed back.
And then there was Bartholomew Kuma's kingdom. Taken apart just as neatly.
Mary Geoise did not need to make threats. It had examples.
But now the Marine was on its feet.
Saint Saturn's palm came down on the table with enough force to rattle the glasses.
"Finn." His voice was controlled fury. "Do you understand what you are saying? The Great Pirate Age is ending. Stability is within reach. We have built something together over hundreds of years, and you want to throw it into chaos now, at the moment of victory? If the Marine turns against us, you will be starting a new war before the last one is even finished. Is that your justice? Is that what you want to be?"
Finn didn't answer.
Sengoku did.
He stood up from his chair, and the room registered it, because the Fleet Admiral of Marine Headquarters rising to his feet in the middle of a World Conference was not a thing that happened.
"Pirates," Sengoku said, and the word came out flat and cold, "are not, and have never been, what genuinely threatens this world. In hundreds of years, no pirate crew has come close to shaking Mary Geoise's control. You know that. Every person in this room knows that."
Saturn opened his mouth.
Sengoku talked over him without raising his voice.
"The member states pay taxes. Every year, on schedule, as required. That revenue alone is sufficient to fund Mary Geoise's operation many times over. But taxes are not enough, are they? On top of the taxes, you collect the Heavenly Gold. And that money, that enormous, compounding, annual extraction from every kingdom represented at this table, does not go to building warships, or roads, or hospitals, or anything that benefits the people whose labor produces it." He paused. "It goes to the God's Abode, where the people living there spend it on slaves. A single purchase. Tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of Berries, for one human being used as a servant. Do you understand what that sum represents? Two Marine warships. Fully crewed, fully armed, capable of suppressing pirates across an entire sea region. That is what gets spent so that someone in the God's Abode can have a new slave."
The silence around the table was different now. Careful. Listening.
"You want to talk about justice?" Sengoku said. "Then explain it to me. Because I have been Fleet Admiral of this Marine for years, and I have never understood how an institution built to protect people is being funded by extracting the living standards of those same people to finance a lifestyle that would embarrass a pirate."
"You dare—"
Sakazuki's voice cut in from down the table, rough-edged and without patience.
"Four hundred and seventy-two years ago, this very World Conference passed a resolution abolishing slavery. It was declared a felony. Every act involved in the capture, sale, or use of human slaves was explicitly prohibited under world law." He looked directly at the Five Elders. "Over two hundred years ago, when Fish-Man Island formally joined the World Government system, a second resolution affirmed those protections and extended them explicitly. Both resolutions were passed at this table, at a conference exactly like this one, and both carry the highest legal authority the World Government is capable of producing." He paused. "The Celestial Dragons in the God's Abode own slaves right now. Today. While we're sitting here. That is not a historical grievance. That is a current, ongoing violation of laws that your own institution created. So do not talk to me about justice."
Saint Warcury's composure cracked just slightly. "The Celestial Dragons are the descendants of the founding kings. Their bloodline established this world. The question of a few—"
He stopped himself.
Not quickly enough.
The phrase had already reached everyone in the room. "A few slaves." In the context of that sentence, those two words revealed exactly where the Five Elders' reasoning ended and their true position began. They hadn't meant to say it that way, but they had said it.
Kong had been quiet.
He had sat with his forearms on the table and his jaw tight, listening, for as long as he could manage.
He slammed the table.
The sound was sharp enough that several delegates flinched.
"Enough." Kong was on his feet, one hand still flat on the table, one finger extended at the Five Elders like a weapon. "I have been Commander-in-Chief of this organization for years. I held Fleet Admiral before that. In all that time, I assumed that the highest authority in Mary Geoise would have something worth saying when the moment arrived. Something that matched the position." He stared at Saint Warcury. "A few slaves. That is what you have. That is your argument. At a World Conference, in front of every member-state royal family in the world, you are telling us that the systematic violation of laws your own institution wrote is acceptable because the number is manageable."
Saint Warcury's face had gone an unpleasant color. His mouth moved without producing sound.
"I am speaking now," Kong said, and turned to face the room. "So listen."
The conference room went still.
"In recent decades, the decay within Mary Geoise's administration has accelerated. Member states are not recovering. The conflicts, the revolts, the Revolutionary Army's expansion across every sea, these are not accidents, and they are not the result of pirates. In the first decade of this century, over twenty member kingdoms collapsed in a single year. Twenty. Do you want to tell me that was because of piracy?" He looked down the row of Five Elders. "You can answer. Go ahead."
No one answered.
"The Great Pirate Age is ending," Kong said. "The Marine has done that. Ask yourselves honestly: has your situation improved? Are the taxes lighter? Is the tribute smaller? Are the CP agents who arrive uninvited in your capitals showing up less frequently?" He waited a moment. "No. Because the problem was never pirates."
Finn spoke.
"In a rotting court," he said, his voice carrying the weight of something he had wanted to say for a long time, "officials are made of rotten timber and the beasts feed on what grows between the steps. The result is always the same: wolves and dogs in positions of power, and the world made into rubble beneath them." He looked directly at the Five Elders. "That is what you have built here. That is the administration you are defending."
Saturn was on his feet. "How dare you. We are the highest authority in this world. What you are describing is treason. Rebellion. Betrayal of everything the Marine was—"
"Betrayal?" Finn's voice didn't rise, but something in it changed, the way a quiet sea changes when the wind shifts. "You want to talk about betrayal."
He reached into the dark at his palm.
The photographs came out of the darkness in his hand, and he threw them across the table.
They scattered across the polished surface and spun toward the Five Elders with the sound of paper snapping against wood.
"Explain that." Finn's voice was flat. "Explain it here, in front of every king at this table. Who is sitting on the Void Throne? What is Lord Im? Why are the five of you, the supposed highest authority in the world, kneeling at her feet?" He pointed at them, arm fully extended, without ceremony. "When did this system, built on the promise of collective authority and equal representation, become the private property of one person? When did Mary Geoise become a kingdom ruled by a single family that no one elected and no one consented to?"
Sengoku was already passing copies down the table. Borsalino moved quietly in the other direction, placing photographs in front of delegate after delegate with the practiced calm of a man doing something he had been planning for a very long time.
The image moved around the room.
A woman on the Void Throne. The Five Elders on their knees at the base of the stairs.
One by one, the kings of the world looked at it.
The conference room did not erupt this time.
It went very, very quiet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~