The veteran Vice Admiral lowered his head, grief and anguish written plainly across his face.
"We've lost nearly eighty percent of our highest-level fighting strength…"
His voice trembled as he continued.
"Those men and women were the pride of the Marines. Tens of thousands of loyal soldiers went into battle believing in justice, only to die on foreign soil."
His hands tightened unconsciously around the hem of his uniform.
"This… this is the worst defeat the Marines have ever suffered since our founding."
Aokiji leaned silently against the wall nearby.
His eyes were closed, his tall figure carrying an unmistakable weariness. It almost seemed as though shutting out the world could spare him from revisiting the nightmare he had just survived.
But the veins standing out across his clenched fist betrayed him.
So did the faint tremor running through his body.
Images from the battle continued flashing through Kuzan's mind.
Comrades falling one after another.
Blood spreading across shattered decks.
Battle cries mixing with screams.
Warships burning.
A force that had departed Marineford in overwhelming strength being crushed until almost nothing remained.
Magellan stood nearby like a silent statue.
A suffocating pressure surrounded him.
His expression was grim, his thoughts still lingering on his brutal clash with Queen.
That fight between two monsters of poison had forced Magellan to expend nearly everything he had. Every exchange had drained more of his strength, and although he remained standing now, exhaustion weighed heavily on both his body and mind.
At the head of the room, Sengoku's expression was darker than a storm cloud.
Through clenched teeth, he slowly forced out two names.
"Eternal Divine Kingdom…"
His eyes hardened.
"Ron…"
Each syllable carried deep hatred.
But beneath that hatred lay something Sengoku himself did not want to acknowledge.
Wariness.
Because after this battle, he could no longer deny just how terrifying an enemy Ron had become.
The cost of the defeat went far beyond casualties and the loss of top-level fighters.
The Marines' prestige had suffered a devastating blow.
For generations, they had presented themselves as the guardians of the seas and the embodiment of justice. Wherever the Marine flag appeared, pirates and criminals were supposed to fear it.
Now the entire world had seen them lose.
Badly.
That alone was enough to shake confidence in Marine authority.
Worse still, the defeat had begun eroding the Marines' own belief in the justice they served.
Young soldiers were questioning themselves.
Veterans were losing confidence.
Men who had once believed without hesitation were beginning to wonder whether everything they had sacrificed for still meant what they thought it did.
After this battle, the military strength of Marine Headquarters had fallen to perhaps its lowest point in history.
Its once-proud warships were returning in ruins.
The harbor had lost its former energy.
Training replacements would take time.
Veterans were exhausted and demoralized.
And whether the Marines could still maintain enough power to intimidate the countless factions roaming the seas had become an open question.
No one knew what came next.
Marineford was smothered beneath an atmosphere of grief unlike anything it had ever experienced.
The defeat had carved itself deeply into every Marine who survived it.
For now, they desperately needed time.
Time to bury their dead.
Time to treat their wounded.
Time to rebuild their strength.
And perhaps most importantly—
time to decide what the Marines were supposed to become in this new era.
This was no longer the sea they had once understood.
Monsters with extraordinary strength and bizarre abilities were appearing everywhere.
Powerful factions surrounded them on all sides.
The old balance was collapsing.
Should the Marines continue clinging to the traditions and ideals that had guided them until now?
Or did they need to change if they wanted to survive?
No one had an answer.
Then—
Rapid footsteps shattered the suffocating silence.
A messenger burst into the room, red-faced and gasping for breath, almost stumbling over himself in his haste.
His expression was a strange mixture of excitement and disbelief.
"R-Report, Fleet Admiral!"
Everyone turned toward him.
"The harbor! Outside the harbor—!"
The messenger struggled to catch his breath.
"It's Vice Admiral Strawberry and the others!"
His next words came out almost as a shout.
"They're back!"
"And they've brought Revolutionary Army prisoners with them!"
"What?!"
Sengoku shot to his feet.
His body leaned over the desk as both hands slammed down against its surface, his knuckles whitening from the force.
Aokiji's eyes snapped open.
The exhaustion in them disappeared for an instant, replaced by a sharp gleam.
Magellan raised his head just as quickly.
Every senior officer in the room stared at the messenger in disbelief.
Confusion.
Surprise.
A faint spark of hope.
All of it appeared across their faces at once.
Then everyone moved.
They rushed toward the enormous windows overlooking the harbor with an urgency completely unlike their earlier exhaustion.
No one wanted to rely on a report.
They needed to see this with their own eyes.
Outside, the harbor plaza was still buried beneath the heavy grief of the Marines' defeat.
But now—
something was changing.
...
A light breeze drifted across the harbor, yet even the wind seemed to carry traces of sorrow. Grief and oppression hung so heavily over Marineford that the air itself felt weighed down.
Then the silence broke.
A sudden commotion swept across the harbor like a rising tide.
Vice Admiral Strawberry was leading a group of Marines into the plaza.
Every one of them carried injuries of varying severity. Their once-neat uniforms were torn and stained, sleeves ripped open and dark patches of dried blood marking the fabric.
Yet their eyes remained remarkably sharp.
There was resolve in those gazes.
The formation they marched in was hardly perfect, but somehow their battered appearance carried an unexpected sense of triumph. Step by step, they entered the harbor plaza with the bearing of soldiers returning from a mission they had actually completed.
And behind them—
several figures immediately drew everyone's attention.
They were bound tightly in specially made Seastone restraints.
Every step was difficult beneath the weight of the shackles, forcing them to move slowly and awkwardly.
Even so, none of them bowed their heads.
Their backs remained straight.
At the front of the prisoners was a young blond man.
His face was covered in wounds, while dried blood still stained the corner of his mouth.
But what truly drew everyone's attention were his eyes.
They burned with fierce defiance.
There was no fear in them.
No surrender.
Only stubborn conviction and an unbroken desire for freedom.
His gaze swept across the surrounding Marines like a blade, refusing to yield even now.
There was no mistaking him.
Sabo.
Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army.
Following behind him were several other senior Revolutionary Army officers.
Karasu moved in grim silence, his imposing presence undiminished despite the restraints around him.
Morley towered over nearly everyone nearby, the giant's enormous body making the chains wrapped around him look almost insignificant. Even in captivity, every step remained firm.
Several other important Revolutionary Army cadres were there as well.
Each of them had once been a pillar of the revolutionary cause.
Now—
they were prisoners.
Heavy restraints bound their bodies, and exhaustion was clear on their battered faces.
But the presence unique to people who had spent years fighting at the heart of a revolution had not disappeared.
Their resolve remained.
Like flames battered by a storm yet refusing to go out, something stubborn and unyielding still burned inside every one of them.
Then someone in the crowd finally recognized them.
"That's Sabo!"
The shout exploded across the harbor.
"And those are Revolutionary Army commanders!"
The words immediately set off an uproar.
"What?!"
"They… they actually captured them?!"
Marines stared in disbelief.
These were not ordinary revolutionaries.
They were some of the Revolutionary Army's most important fighters, people known for appearing and disappearing across the world while repeatedly slipping through the World Government's grasp.
Yet now they were being marched into Marineford in chains.
"We actually won something!"
"This is huge!"
"Damn… I actually feel better already!"
"So we haven't completely lost our edge!"
Voices rose one after another.
Shock gradually gave way to excitement.
Then someone asked the obvious question.
"Vice Admiral Strawberry captured them?!"
Countless eyes immediately turned toward Strawberry and the battered Marines accompanying him.
The harbor erupted.
Only moments earlier, soldiers had stood around with hollow expressions, crushed beneath the weight of their disastrous defeat.
Now those same faces showed surprise.
Confusion.
And, slowly, excitement.
Some Marines stared openly at the Revolutionary Army prisoners.
Others whispered urgently among themselves.
Several younger sailors looked as though they had suddenly rediscovered a glimmer of hope.
The contrast could hardly have been greater.
Marine Headquarters had just suffered one of the worst defeats in its history.
Its forces had been devastated.
Admirals had been captured.
Tens of thousands of elite soldiers had been lost.
The entire harbor had been drowning beneath the humiliation of defeat.
And then, without warning, Sabo and several of the Revolutionary Army's most important officers had been brought back in chains.
It was like a bolt of lightning piercing through a pitch-black sky.
High above the harbor, Sengoku stood at the command platform and stared intently at the prisoners.
His gaze settled first on Sabo.
Then the others.
Finally, he looked toward Strawberry and the exhausted Marines who had escorted them back.
There was unmistakable relief on their battered faces—the look of soldiers who had somehow managed to fulfill their mission despite everything that had happened.
Sengoku's tightly clenched fist slowly relaxed.
The white marks across his knuckles gradually faded.
He drew in a long breath.
From his perspective, the explanation seemed obvious.
Amid the chaos of the Marines' catastrophic defeat and desperate retreat, Strawberry's unit must somehow have encountered this Revolutionary Army group and, through determination, skill, and perhaps an extraordinary stroke of fortune, managed to capture its core members.
However they had accomplished it—
this was undoubtedly the single brightest result to emerge from an otherwise disastrous campaign.
A small flame in the middle of darkness.
And for a Marine force whose morale had fallen almost completely apart—
it was exactly the victory they desperately needed.