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Domino's fighting style had never relied on a sword. She fought with her own body instead, which meant she knew absolutely nothing about swordsmanship going into this.
If she went to Ikki now like this, he'd have to start teaching her from scratch. Even with all the patience in the world, that would only slow her progress. But if she did some groundwork beforehand, her training under him later would move that much faster.
"I've made up my mind. I should start training properly. Since Sadi-chan's so certain about this, I should trust her judgment. Before I go to Ikki's side, I'll start learning how to actually use a sword, right now. Sadi-chan already knows her way around one. Maybe I should go have a proper talk with her about it."
Domino felt a wave of relief the moment she'd made up her mind. Still, she didn't go straight down to Level Six to share the thought with Sadi.
Part of it was that Sadi hadn't seemed calm enough yet. If Domino went to talk to her now, Sadi would probably just keep pushing the idea of the two of them marrying Ikki together, and Domino genuinely didn't want to hear more of that at the moment.
There was also the matter that Sadi had the far more important job of guarding Level Six. With Blackbeard likely heading straight for it, its defense mattered more than almost anything else right now. If chaos broke out there again, the same kind of chaos Bullet had caused before, the situation at Impel Down could turn disastrous.
Even if the riot were eventually put down, the losses could still be severe, and that wasn't something Domino wanted to risk. Public duty and private feeling pointed the same way: it wasn't the right time to go looking for Sadi.
"Besides, I have my own part to play here. Even if I can't fight on the front line, I can still help plan the defenses. Thinking things through is important too."
Domino nodded to herself, took out a sheet of white paper, and began writing. Before long, a set of defensive strategies had taken shape on the page.
Meanwhile, on the first half of the Grand Line, above the stretch of sea running from Marine Headquarters to Impel Down, a Marine warship cut through the water at tremendous speed. But there wasn't a single Marine aboard it. The ones actually manning the ship were a crew of vicious pirates instead.
If Sengoku had been there, he'd have recognized them at once as the crew of Blackbeard, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, and he'd have known this was the very same Marine warship that had vanished from Marine Headquarters.
Pere~Pere~Pere~Pere~
At the bow of the ship, the Den Den Mushi in Blackbeard's hand rang without stop. He made no move to answer it. After a few short laughs, he simply hurled it straight into the sea, and it vanished beneath the waves with a splash and a tearful expression on its snail face.
"Captain Teach, shouldn't we answer that? It might be the Marines, or the World Government," one of his crew asked, puzzled, stepping up beside him.
"Hahaha, you really think there's any point answering them at this stage?" Teach threw his head back and laughed.
"Well... I suppose there really isn't," the man said, scratching the back of his head.
They'd already abandoned Marine Headquarters, and as far as the Marines were concerned, that was outright betrayal. There was no going back to being a Shichibukai after this. At most, answering a call from the Marines or the World Government now would earn them nothing but a lecture, and there was no point sitting through one of those. None of it mattered anymore anyway.
"It's a bit of a shame, honestly. Those World Government agents were supposed to work with us to take Ikki down. Now that chance is gone, and finding another one down the road is only going to be more trouble," the crewman said with real regret.
He'd joined the Blackbeard Pirates later than most, but he understood the feud between his captain and Ikki well enough. Back in Mogu Town, Ikki had killed several of Blackbeard's most trusted crew members, and the two of them had gone on to compete openly for a Shichibukai seat afterward. Blackbeard had wanted Ikki dead for a long time.
The crewman had assumed Blackbeard would jump at the World Government's offer, teaming up with them to finally eliminate Ikki. What he hadn't expected was for Blackbeard to walk away from that chance entirely and head for Impel Down to gather reinforcements instead, even though that had actually been the plan from the very start.
"Hahaha, work with the World Government to take Ikki down? Those people can't stand to let go of anything." Teach shook his head, mockery written across his face. "In the end, all they really wanted was to use our strength to keep Ikki in check. The moment we actually moved to kill him, they'd have stepped in to stop us. If we'd gone through with it, the World Government would have gotten exactly what it wanted, and we might not have gotten anything at all. So instead, we might as well use the Marines being tied up in their war to our advantage. We stick to the plan we had from the start. We pull the prisoners out."
Blackbeard laughed loudly.
"I should've known. The captain always sees straight through to the heart of things," the crewman said, looking at him with open admiration.
"All that's left now is to wait for the Gate of Justice to open. Then we head for Impel Down." Blackbeard laughed again. "Trust me, those old dogs down on Level Six must be dying to see the outside world again."
He pictured it already, leading the prisoners of Level Six out of their cells and folding them into his crew, and the thought sent a rush of excitement through him.
Ever since Ikki had wiped out the most promising members he'd once recruited, the state of his crew had weighed on Blackbeard constantly. He'd found new partners since then, ones with plenty of potential in their own right, but they still fell short of what he'd lost. That was exactly why he wanted the ten prisoners of Level Six so badly.