Chapter 478: At Ease
"What?"
In his office at Navy Headquarters, Fleet Admiral Sengoku hadn't lost composure like this in a very long time. His hand came down on his desk without meaning to, the thick reinforced wood cracking under the impact.
"Are you serious? The Five Elders? How is something like this possible? How could something like this happen?"
His voice had climbed nearly to a shout.
"Believe it or not, it's already done." The voice on the other end of the Den Den Mushi was cold and flat, giving nothing away. "Rather than dwell on it, you should be thinking about what bounty figures to assign them. Get it done quickly."
"I cannot accept this." Sengoku's jaw was clenched so hard the words barely made it out. The hand gripping the Den Den Mushi had begun to shake. "Sakazuki and Kuzan are the most loyal Marines who ever served! Since the Great Pirate Era began they have been the backbone of this Navy! They have spent their entire careers hunting down criminals and defending Justice! And now you're telling me they've betrayed it? That they've gone over to the enemy? How am I supposed to accept that?"
He caught himself, pulled his voice back down, though the conviction behind it didn't soften by a single degree.
He could not make himself believe it. He refused to believe that those two men, the two men he had once believed the next Fleet Admiral would emerge from, had thrown away everything they'd stood for across decades of service. That they had turned their backs on Justice and become exactly what they had spent their lives fighting against.
"We're not asking for your opinion, Sengoku." A cold sound, somewhere between a breath and a dismissal. "Issue the bounty posters for both of them. Prepare an official statement. Get it out to sea as fast as possible."
"..."
Sengoku's fist tightened at his side.
He couldn't refuse. The Five Elders had given the order directly. Whatever he believed, whatever he felt, he had no authority to push back.
"Yes."
That was all he could manage.
"One more thing. Begin organizing a new large-scale recruitment."
The voice continued without acknowledging his answer. "An unprecedented battle is coming. The enemy's strength is beyond what you can picture. We need more power."
An unprecedented war.
The word landed in Sengoku's chest like a weight dropping into deep water. He followed up immediately. "Five Elders, what do you mean by that exactly?"
"It means that Brett and everything he's managed to pull together around him have become something the entire Government must meet with its full strength." That was all the explanation given.
"..."
Sengoku's mouth had gone dry.
The entire World Government. Full strength.
The call ended. He stood there for a moment with the Den Den Mushi still in his hand, the silence of the room pressing in around him.
He had spent decades on these seas. He had seen storms that most men couldn't imagine, weathered crises that should have unmade everything. He had thought himself, if not unshakeable, then at least someone who had been shaken enough times to know how to find his footing again.
He wasn't finding it now.
Was this what was coming? A wave tall enough to bury the World Government itself?
Brett.
That man.
How long had it even been?
Brett made it back to Fish-Man Island faster than he had any right to expect, and found it as he'd hoped: quiet. Undisturbed. The island breathing its calm submarine breath as though the past few days had been nothing more than a dream.
That was a relief. Im-sama's weapon wasn't built for underwater combat. Whatever its origins, whatever it was capable of in open sky, the ocean was hostile territory for something like that. The separation worked in their favor here.
He hadn't even made it to a proper room before Tesoro found him.
"So? What happened?"
Tesoro had known Brett was heading to reinforce Zephyr's group. Brett had managed to get word to the people at Fish-Man Island before he left, a brief heads-up that something was happening. But after that, nothing. Everything that had unfolded from there had gone without any update.
"Barely made it out alive," Brett said.
He had claimed the nearest bed in the Forest of the Sea's temporary housing and deposited himself onto it without ceremony, staring up at the ceiling with the particular exhaustion of someone who had thoroughly wrung himself dry.
"..."
Tesoro stared at him for a long moment.
Then his eyes went wide. "You're serious."
He genuinely could not wrap his mind around it. Across everything he'd seen Brett walk through, the idea that something had pushed him that close to the edge seemed almost structurally impossible.
Except. Wait.
"Did Imu personally show up?"
Tesoro's eyes were very wide now.
He knew what was on that final island. He and Brett had stood there together and read what was written. He knew exactly what the World Government kept in reserve, what it was capable of turning on the world when it decided someone needed to cease to exist.
No individual, no matter how strong, could counter a force of that nature with their own body alone.
"I don't know whether Imu came in person or not," Brett said, turning his head just enough to look at him. "But the weapon itself showed up. No question about that."
"..."
Tesoro was quiet for a moment.
Then he exhaled slowly. "Lucky to be breathing, then."
"That's one way to put it."
"I can imagine what it cost to get out of that."
Tesoro gave a small nod, something grave moving across his face. He didn't press for details. Whatever it had taken, the evidence was lying in front of him, stretched out on a bed looking like a man who'd had every last reserve wrung out of him twice over.
"Though it's not all bad news."
Brett shifted slightly, meeting his eyes. "Akainu and Aokiji are with us now."
Tesoro raised an eyebrow. "Can they be trusted?"
Brett gave a slow nod. "Unless they've somehow learned to fake the inside of their own minds, yes. They're reliable."
"Hm." Something eased in Tesoro's expression. A smile found its way onto his face, quiet but genuine. "That's actually very good news."
He looked Brett over once more, taking in the hollowed exhaustion sitting in every line of the man's face. "I'll leave you to it. I'll pass the news along to Jinbei and the Ryugu Palace. You rest."
Brett nodded.
Considerate man. Good friend.
He closed his eyes.
He had pushed himself far past anything reasonable today. The clash with that colossal thing in the sky had eaten through him completely, leaving almost nothing in reserve. And beyond the physical drain, the sheer relentlessness of it, one desperate near-miss after another, had left him scraped hollow in a way that rest was the only answer for.
He was almost asleep when he heard the door.
He didn't open his eyes. Didn't move.
"Did I wake you."
The voice that came was familiar in the way that certain things become familiar without ever becoming ordinary. Slightly cool in its tone. Unhurried.
"You already knew you would," Brett said without moving. "If you already knew, why come?"
He felt the bed shift. The surface near his head dipped. He opened his eyes.
A pair of bright, steady eyes looked back at him from very close up.
Shyarly was leaning over him, her neat short hair falling forward, close enough that he could feel her breath.
"It's rare, seeing you look like this," she said. There was no particular warmth in the delivery, but there was something underneath the composure that wasn't coldness either.
"I'd rather you only ever see me at my most brilliant," Brett said. He hadn't moved. He wasn't going to.
"That version of you is fine," she said. "But this one." A cool hand settled against his cheek, light and certain. Something soft moved across her face, something that didn't often surface there, a warmth that she let show for exactly as long as she chose to. "This is the version where you actually need someone beside you."
"You really are..."
Brett exhaled. He turned toward her, reaching out, both arms settling around her waist and drawing her in.
"Prophetic dreams are a terrible burden," he said quietly.
"Sleep."
Her hand found his hair, her fingers moving through it slowly.
"I'll be here."
Brett slept.
Being beside Shyarly always did that to him. The tension, the residual hum of a body that had been pushed past its limits, the restlessness that followed the kind of day he'd had, all of it settled away. What replaced it wasn't emptiness. It was something warmer and more solid than that.
The feeling of being completely at ease.
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