Meanwhile in Marie Geoise…..The air in the throne room of Pangaea Castle was not merely still, it was stagnant, thick with the weight of centuries and the dust of absolute power.
It was a silence so profound it felt like a physical presence, pressing down on the five figures kneeling upon the polished, celestial stone floor.
The Five Elders, the highest executive authority of the World Government, heads bowed, their formidable auras suppressed into utter submission, were not alone. They were waiting for their master there.
Their eyes were fixed on the immense, empty throne, the Empty Throne, symbol of the shared power of the World Government, a lie perpetuated for eight hundred years. Today, the lie was being set aside by a single being.
Tuk… tuk… tuk…
The sound was soft, almost delicate, the measured footfalls of someone who had all the time in the world. Yet, each step sent a fresh wave of primal dread through the kneeling elders.
It was the sound of a predator strolling through its domain, a sound that promised oblivion. A figure emerged from the deep shadows at the rear of the hall, clad in formless black robes that only showed a little of his white hair, and the faint white tattoos around his brown skin.
An ominous, chilling aura radiated from it, a miasma of ancient malice that made the very air feel cold and thin.
And then there were the eyes, twin points of smoldering crimson that glowed from within the darkness of its hood, eyes that held no pity, no curiosity, only a vast, impersonal hunger for order and the utter annihilation of anything that threatened it.
The figure walked slowly, inexorably, towards the dais. As it passed the kneeling Elders, the red eyes swept over them.
It was not a look of recognition or greeting; it was an assessment, a lord checking on his livestock. Saint Jaygarcia Saturn, Saint Shepherd Ju Peter, Saint Topman Warcury, Saint Marcus Mars, and Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro, each one, a titan of political and martial power in their own right, stiffened as one, their postures becoming even more rigid, their foreheads nearly touching the cold floor.
A faint, almost imperceptible sense of satisfaction seemed to emanate from the robed figure before it continued its unhurried ascent up the stairs.
It reached the summit and, without ceremony, settled onto the throne that was never meant to be occupied and was 'empty'. The Empty Throne was empty no more. Imu-sama had taken his seat.
In one hand, he held a single, crisp bounty poster. The image of Vortex D. Ragnar, standing defiant atop a world-ending wave, was clearly visible. The red eyes stared at it, unblinking.
The silence stretched, becoming a tangible thing, a suffocating blanket. The Elders dared not breathe and could only wait for Imu to speak.
Then, a voice, chilling and resonant, echoed in the vast chamber, a sound like grinding stones and frozen tombs.
"Mu has seen him," Imu spoke in the archaic, royal "we" carrying an unimaginable weight. "And….he has seen Mu."
The shock that rippled through the Five Elders was palpable. It was Nusjuro who found his voice first, though it was strained with disbelief. "How could it be, Imu-sama?! That man... he is a recent emergence! A product of this era!"
The red eyes did not waver from the poster. "Back on God Valley," Imu continued, his tone flat, devoid of emotion, as if recounting the weather.
"When Mu turned Davy(Rocks) into a demon... Mu saw him. He stood at the edge of the chaos. He watched. And then, just before he left God Valley, he looked directly at Mu... and he gave Mu this."
Imu slowly raised his other hand, the one not holding the poster, and extended a single brown finger wrapped in white tattoos from the depths of his dark robe.
It was a simple, crude, yet universally understood gesture of defiance. A middle finger.
Seeing this, the Five Elders were horrified, as this daring pirate actually insulted Imu-sama like this. The five elders exchanged a glance, vowing to make that dirty pirate pay.
"He disappeared after that," Imu concluded, letting his hand fall back into the folds of black cloth.
The implications were staggering. This Ragnar was not some upstart. He was a ghost from the most classified, most catastrophic event in recent history, an event the World Government had spent decades erasing from memory.
He had been present at the fall of Rocks 'Davy,' as Imu called him, and had borne witness to Imu's own direct intervention.
"But Imu-sama," Saturn ventured, his voice cautious, "he does not look that old. It has been thirty-eight years..."
The red eyes slid from the bounty poster to fix upon Saturn. There was no anger in that gaze, only a cold, infinite patience that was far more terrifying.
"There are abilities in this world that affect the flow of time itself," Imu stated, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to freeze the marrow in their bones. "That is how he was there. And maybe that is how he is here now."
Saturn immediately lowered his gaze, chastened. To question Imu was to question the very fabric of reality as he dictated it.
"Mu wants him gone," Imu declared, the malice in his voice thickening.
"His existence is a flaw. A stain. But not before this one."
With a flick of his wrist, the poster of Ragnar vanished, and another took its place. This one showed a young man with freckles and a wide, confident grin, a fiery tattoo on his arm. Portgas D. Ace.
"Portgas D. Ace?" Nusjuro murmured, recognizing the name.
"Yes," Imu hissed, the single word dripping with a personal, venomous hatred that had been absent when discussing Ragnar.
"He bears a striking resemblance to that daring insect... the one who dared to attack Mu in God Valley…his existence is a shame to the Holy Land."
The memory of a certain hat-wearing pirate king, whose initial also happened to be 'D,' hung unspoken in the air.
"Execute him. Publicly. Let the entire world see what becomes of the bloodline that dares to challenge the gods. Let them see the fire of his lineage extinguished forever."
The command was given. Not a request, not a suggestion. It was a devil's decree.
"It shall be done, my lord," the Five Elders replied in perfect, rehearsed unison, their voices a chorus of absolute obedience.
A wave of Imu's hand granted them permission to leave. They rose as one, bowing deeply, and retreated from the throne room, their footsteps echoing in the oppressive silence. The heavy doors closed behind them, leaving Imu alone once more.
He sat on the throne for a long moment, the stillness returning. Then, the bounty poster of Vortex D. Ragnar reappeared in his hand.
He looked at the face of the man who had mocked him across the decades, the man who commanded the sea itself, the man who represented a chaotic, unpredictable variable in his meticulously ordered world.
With a slow, deliberate motion, his fingers took hold of the poster. There was no rage in the action, only a cold, final certainty. He tore it.
The rip was loud in the silence, a sharp, decisive sound. He tore it again, and again, until nothing but a handful of paper scraps remained, fluttering down to rest at the foot of the Empty Throne.
"There is no need for such people in Mu's perfect world," Imu whispered to the emptiness, the words hanging in the air like a death sentence not just for a man, but for an entire concept: freedom.
He stood, his dark robes swirling around him, and descended the dais. The crimson ringed eyes glowed once more in the gloom before he melted back into the shadows from whence he came, leaving behind only the shredded remnants of a bounty and a chilling promise of the absolute, merciless order he intended to impose upon the seas.
The game had changed. The Sea Scourge had drawn the attention of the one player who considered the entire world his chessboard, and the first move had been a declaration of total war against the very will that burned in the heart of the D.