"What?!"
The same cry burst from Ain and Binz.
They never would have imagined that this great enemy of the Marines and the World Government had appeared here to recruit their teacher into his own camp.
Then, Teacher...
After the initial shock, Zephyr did not hesitate at all. He roared at once.
"Don't be ridiculous! Fire Dragon Yemu, no matter what, I am a Marine. I will never betray the Marines!"
"Ah, ah... no need to refuse so quickly, Admiral Zephyr."
Yemu paid no mind to Zephyr's fury. Instead, he glanced around.
With a wave of his hand, the sofas and chairs in the office all floated up, drifting behind Yemu and Zephyr's group.
Then Yemu sat down as casually as if he were in his own home.
"First, let me make one thing clear. I'm not here to fight. I came with great sincerity to invite you, Admiral Zephyr..."
The three of them did not doubt that. From the brief clash just now to Yemu's careless attitude at this moment, he truly did not seem to have come looking for a fight.
As for sincerity, the fact that Fire Dragon Yemu had personally come here was already the greatest show of sincerity there could be.
Even so, Zephyr still refused to sit. He only stared at him coldly.
Seeing this, Ain and Binz stayed at their teacher's sides as well, watching Yemu with wary eyes.
"We can be considered old friends, can't we, Admiral Zephyr? It's been twenty-one years since we first met at the Sabaody Archipelago. So, I'd like to ask you a question first. Do you think I'm a bad person?"
Once Yemu asked that question, the entire office fell silent. Only the sound of falling rubble could be heard.
Judging from the slight furrow in Zephyr's brow, he seemed to have fallen into thought.
A bad person?
From the perspective of the Marines and the World Government, Fire Dragon Yemu was undoubtedly a vicious criminal. The battle twenty years ago alone, where nearly seventy thousand Marines died, was enough to make it impossible for Zephyr to ever forgive him.
But from the perspective of the world as a whole, the words "bad person" could not be forced onto Fire Dragon Yemu no matter how one looked at it.
Back when he was a pirate, the Sky Pirates led by Fire Dragon Yemu had never harmed civilians. Even when they fought the Marines, they restrained themselves as much as possible to avoid hurting the innocent.
More than that, he had done something even Zephyr, as an Admiral, could not do. In the Holy Land of Mary Geoise, he saved the slaves persecuted by the Celestial Dragons, and from then on, his name spread across the sea.
In the twenty years since that war, after founding his country, he had successfully transformed the North Blue, once the most chaotic of the Four Great Oceans, into the Sea of Gold, a Paradise everyone longed for.
Beyond that, the commercial alliance he established used shared interests to bind together people once divided by countless conflicts. He saved countless non-World Government affiliated nations, keeping them away from the scourge of human traffickers and war, and making those countries prosperous.
Zephyr had been to those countries before. The smiles on the children's faces, and their admiration for the Rainbow Kingdom, had left even him deeply shaken.
Any one of these achievements was something Zephyr could not have accomplished even in his dreams.
Yet this young man before him had done them all.
For some reason, Zephyr remembered the declaration Fire Dragon Yemu had made to the entire world during that battle twenty years ago.
If those words had only been empty talk back then, then after twenty years, he had truly made them real.
And the Marines...
Thinking of this, Zephyr clenched his fists tightly.
That gesture held all kinds of emotions, unwillingness, anger, and helplessness.
The two disciples beside him also sensed the change in their teacher's mood.
They might not have been able to feel it as deeply, but they had also seen the changes in the world over the past twenty years.
A bad person?
"What a shame."
Just then, Zephyr slowly spoke.
"Even as your enemy, I have to admit that you've done well. You've done things that even the Marines and the World Government couldn't do. But I'll say it again. As a Marine, I will never betray the Marines."
"The Marines..."
That answer made Yemu stare straight into Zephyr's eyes as he asked his second question.
"So, Admiral Zephyr, throughout all your years in the Marines, was the only thing you held on to the identity of being a Marine?"
As soon as those words fell, Zephyr's pupils shrank sharply.
"If your answer is yes, then I'll turn around and leave right now."
At that moment, sensing the change in their teacher's emotions, Ain and Binz both felt that their teacher seemed a little shaken.
This time, Zephyr remained silent for a long while and gave no answer.
Perhaps it was because that answer was too difficult to say aloud.
"Is it hard to answer? Then let me ask it another way. Do you think this world has so many pirates because ONE PIECE exists? Or does ONE PIECE exist because pirates came first?"
The third question once again surprised Zephyr and his two disciples.
Zephyr fell into thought, while Ain and Binz looked strangely between their teacher and Fire Dragon Yemu.
Seeing this, Yemu turned to the two youngsters.
"What about you two? What do you think the answer is?"
Suddenly being called on, the two youngsters panicked a little. They looked at each other, then at their silent teacher.
In the end, Ain, who was the bolder of the two, spoke first with a trace of nervousness.
"It's because of ONE PIECE. If not for ONE PIECE, there wouldn't be so many pirates setting out endlessly across the sea with ONE PIECE as their goal."
"Is that so? But ONE PIECE only came after Roger appeared. Even the name Laugh Tale was given to that island by Roger. Then what about before Roger? Rocks, Whitebeard, Golden Lion, Kaidou, BIGMOM, and countless other pirates. What did they become pirates for?"
The question left Ain speechless, and she did not know how to respond. Beside her, Binz thought for a moment before answering.
"To rule the sea, or for treasure, I guess."
"To rule the sea, or for treasure? Maybe that is one reason. Then, do the two of you actually understand these pirates you hate so much?"
Both of them froze.
"You don't? Then treat it as me telling you a story. I'll tell you about one or two of them. The pirate you know best is probably Whitebeard. He was born on an island in the New World, but because his homeland was too poor to pay the Heavenly Tribute, it couldn't become a Member Nation of the World Government. Because of that, his country turned into a lawless island overrun by pirates and human traffickers. After the country fell, more and more children became unfortunate orphans, and Whitebeard was one of them. To survive, he had no choice but to become a pirate from a young age."
"Next is Kaidou. He was born in a country called the Vodka Kingdom. In order to become a Member Nation of the World Government, that country had no choice but to keep waging wars and plundering money so it could afford the Heavenly Tribute. This plunged the country into endless conflict. Kaidou was once the strongest warrior of that nation, and he was only ten years old at the time. But to obtain a ticket to the Reverie, that country sold its own warrior, Kaidou, to the Marines and turned him into a bargaining chip in a political trade. That was how Kaidou became so disappointed in the world and became a pirate..."
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