—Broadcast—
Under such circumstances—political maneuvering, institutional pressure, desperate compromise—Wendy joined the New Marine system without fully understanding the complex machinations that had produced this outcome.
With the eye-catching designation of Donquixote Wendy—deliberately emphasizing her Celestial Dragon heritage—she became an Admiral of the Marine at merely fourteen years of age.
In terms of hierarchical status, she occupied the same organizational tier as other Admirals. All twelve served under the supreme leadership of Acting Fleet Admiral Artoria Pendragon. This result proved far more acceptable to her brother Saint Mjosgard than the alternative of God's Knights servitude.
As to whether this proposal would genuinely lead to the "win-win situation" that had been advertised? That depended entirely on one's perspective and institutional loyalty.
Saint Jaygarcia Saturn unilaterally didn't believe it represented anything approaching balance. He simply felt he'd been poached by the Acting Fleet Admiral once again—another talented individual diverted from Celestial Dragon service into Artoria's expanding power base.
The discomfort was profound and growing.
The extended flashback showing Admiral Tenryu's past finally reached its conclusion. The Sky Screen's broadcast had revealed Wendy's complete origin story—from Grandine's island to Mjosgard's rescue to the catastrophic Mary Geoise incident.
Bonnie sat in the present timeline, looking at her best friend Wendy with genuine admiration mixed with complicated emotions. It had been under Wendy's direct influence that the gluttonous girl had ultimately joined the God's Knights alongside her cyborg father.
As for why Bonnie hadn't joined the Marine instead—following Wendy's path toward Artoria's more humane organization—the answer was brutally simple: Saint Jaygarcia Saturn had offered compensation high enough that the woman simply couldn't refuse.
The price had been astronomical. Resources. Protection. Guarantees of her father's continued existence in some form.
Father and daughter were now controlled by the same Celestial Dragon through different leverage points. This represented a helpless situation forced by cruel reality rather than genuine preference.
"The Revolutionary Army led by Sabo is genuinely like a swarm of cockroaches," Bonnie observed with visceral disgust coloring her voice. "No matter how thoroughly you exterminate them, they prove impossible to kill completely. Their organizational vitality is truly extraordinary."
Bonnie's hatred for the Revolutionary Army could be basically equated with her hatred for the Celestial Dragons themselves—which made her current service to those same Celestial Dragons deeply ironic.
Since she'd joined one faction through necessity, she must be responsible for her own survival. Suppressing the Revolutionary Army served her immediate best interests regardless of ideological complexity.
The woman didn't want waking up someday to discover that Mary Geoise's holy land—the last supposed sanctuary of stability—had become the target of Revolutionary Army subversion.
Before those enemies could take her life or destroy the fragile peace she'd constructed, she needed eliminating dangers preemptively.
After joining the Celestial Dragons because she fundamentally couldn't defeat them—after embracing the philosophy of "if you can't beat them, join them"—Bonnie had actually completely degenerated. She'd integrated into the God Clan's social class with disturbing completeness.
Initially, she'd experienced psychological pressure about casually playing with slaves' lives. The cruelty had bothered her conscience, created internal conflict, reminded her of her mother's suffering.
But after witnessing such casual violence repeatedly—after personally participating in exercises of arbitrary power—she'd become emotionally numb to others' suffering.
She no longer cared whether random people lived or died. She just wanted existing peacefully alongside her father's lobotomized remnant, maintaining the fiction that some family remained intact.
Survival had required moral compromise. Compromise had led to complicity. Complicity had destroyed her remaining humanity.
"These subsequent Revolutionary Army members are no longer merely radical in their ideology," Wendy observed thoughtfully, her young voice carrying surprising analytical depth. "They can almost be described as genuinely fanatical. Each operates like a religious zealot, practicing a cruel revolutionary path with their own lives as willing sacrifices."
As the second-generation leader of the Revolutionary Army, Sabo had completely transformed the organizational culture. He'd changed the style established by first-generation leadership under Monkey D. Dragon—those moderates who'd attempted cooperating with sympathetic nobility, who'd sought gradual reform over violent revolution.
Sabo was utterly uncompromising and completely unyielding. He'd taken up the revolutionary banner with absolute conviction and pursued eliminating the powerful class from a purely physical level.
No pretense. No diplomatic maneuvering. No sophisticated political theatre.
Just straightforward systematic killing of masters and oppressors.
The working people who'd been enslaved for lifetimes were instantly ignited by this uncompromising ideological framework. Finally, someone was articulating what they'd always felt but never dared expressing.
Many talented and ambitious individuals—people who possessed capability but lacked aristocratic birth—joined the Revolutionary Army in massive waves. This influx of new blood made the old organization bigger and stronger again, transforming it into a force that absolutely could not be ignored across all seas.
Later, the Marine and World Government had launched large-scale coordinated campaigns against the Second Revolutionary Army under Sabo's leadership. Multiple operations. Enormous resource investment. Comprehensive intelligence gathering.
But from the perspective of tangible gains and lasting impact? The results proved minimal at best.
Even when key figures like Revolutionary Army commanders were successfully killed in targeted assassinations, their deaths didn't produce significant impact on the organization's operational structure.
The Revolutionary Army had been systematically broken into small independent cells scattered across all seas. This decentralization was deliberate strategy rather than organizational weakness.
Grassroots Revolutionary Army units exercised full subjective initiative. They could freely judge situations and independently decide on revolutionary actions without reporting to superior authority or waiting for strategic guidance.
This resulted in revolutionary flames blooming simultaneously in multiple locations across the seas. Even deploying more "firefighters"—Marine forces attempting to suppress uprisings—couldn't extinguish the blazing sparks spreading everywhere at once.
If you wanted replicating the situation of Baltigo's complete destruction—that one decisive strike that had annihilated Dragon's headquarters entirely—the success rate approached infinitely close to zero under Sabo's distributed command structure.
Sabo's leadership ability and personal charisma proved far superior to those of the previous Revolutionary Army leader. His strategic thinking surpassed Dragon's in critical dimensions.
Sometimes, Acting Fleet Admiral Artoria Pendragon found herself sighing with genuine tactical regret. She probably should have deliberately left some of Monkey D. Dragon's organizational remnants intact rather than pursuing complete annihilation.
After cleaning them up thoroughly in one devastating campaign, the Revolutionary Army had lost internal factional conflicts that had previously constrained Sabo's radical impulses.
Instead of wasting energy and resources on internal ideological struggles—moderates versus radicals, gradualists versus revolutionaries—the movement had become a unified fist under single leadership.
They'd become increasingly difficult to counter through conventional military operations.
This extended afternoon tea between best friends finally reached its conclusion under direct orders from Saint Jaygarcia Saturn transmitted via Den Den Mushi.
Bonnie now faced assignment to hunt down the Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army the second-in-command reporting directly to Sabo himself.
His whereabouts had finally been discovered under the Celestial Dragons' comprehensive surveillance network. Saint Saturn was dispatching the Deputy Commander of his God's Knights—someone very equal in both combat strength and institutional status to the target.
Even if Bonnie couldn't completely kill the peson in direct confrontation, she could at minimum strike a significant blow against the Revolutionary Army's operational arrogance. Being able to accomplish even partial objectives represented victory.
Admiral Wendy departed Mary Geoise carrying the elaborate cake Bonnie had prepared as parting gift—multiple tiers of confection that would require several people to consume given Wendy's bottomless appetite.
On the journey back to Rome, she happened encountering Admiral Kisame Hoshigaki. The fish-man warrior had just finished diplomatic conversations with Saint Mjosgard. Various matters concerning Fish-Man Island required communication among multiple interested parties.
"Queen Otohime has extended personal invitation for your brother to visit Fish-Man Island," Kisame explained as they walked side by side through Rome's marble corridors. "I'll be accompanying him as security and diplomatic liaison. Are you interested in joining us?"
The two Admirals proceeded together, discussing Queen Otohime casually—that mermaid whose assassination years ago had devastated Fish-Man Island's political landscape.
Since the queen had been resurrected through means nobody fully understood even now—some combination of Devil Fruit ability, advanced medical technology, and sheer narrative convenience—Fish-Man Island had experienced one full year under her renewed rule.
The underwater kingdom's citizens were living relatively safe and harmonious existences again under her guidance. Crime had dropped. Racial tensions with surface humans had eased slightly. Trade had improved.
In terms of concrete political achievements, Queen Otohime's accomplishments during this single year far exceeded the sum of King Neptune's ineffectual decades-long reign.
The massive king had been very tactful about recognizing his own limitations. He'd stepped back gracefully behind the scenes, peacefully transferring executive authority to Queen Otohime while maintaining ceremonial position.
"I genuinely want meeting the mermaid who saved my brother's life," Wendy responded with obvious enthusiasm, her childish features brightening. "I owe her enormous gratitude for that rescue."
Despite her Admiral rank and devastating combat capabilities, Wendy still possessed the fundamental personality of a young girl. She remained full of curiosity about unknown experiences and exotic locations.
She didn't know what kind of scenery existed on Fish-Man Island—that underwater paradise situated ten thousand meters below the ocean's surface. If Admiral Tenryu could travel with her brother at government expense, she absolutely couldn't refuse this appealing proposal.
After Admiral Kisame proposed this idea to Wendy, the fish-man separated from his colleague. He currently needed meeting a former Warlord of the Sea—a fish-man who'd once been his fellow species member before ideological divergence.
Someone Kisame had personally escorted to prison years ago.
After Monkey D. Luffy and Buggy the Clown had broken through Impel Down's supposedly impenetrable defenses several years ago, most pirates imprisoned there—whether small-time criminals or legendary captains—had basically escaped during the chaos.
Impel Down had been severely damaged during that catastrophic riot. The facility could no longer function normally as maximum-security detention. Multiple levels had been compromised. Security systems had failed. Personnel had been killed or traumatized.
Finally, under direct decision from the Fleet Admiral, the original underwater prison had been completely abandoned as strategically obsolete. Plans were drafted for constructing a new underwater detention facility that would be genuinely impenetrable this time.
When Rome's massive Marine Headquarters fortress-city was being designed and built, the necessity for comprehensive prison facilities had been fully considered from initial architectural planning.
A large underwater prison called Still Water Prison had been constructed in the ocean depths directly below the military fortress—integrated into Rome's foundation structure rather than existing as separate installation.
The former Impel Down had been located in the Calm Belt—that peculiar region characterized by complete absence of ocean currents and dense Sea King populations. For pirates imprisoned there, the probability of successful escape had been approximately zero under normal circumstances.
However, Still Water Prison—constructed at truly astronomical expense using the most advanced techniques available—had directly removed the word "approximately" from that assessment.
Once a pirate was imprisoned within Still Water's depths, they would lose personal freedom forever. Escape existed only in desperate dreams and impossible fantasies.
Assuming that high-level traitors appeared inside the prison facility—guards corrupted, administrators compromised, entire security apparatus turned—Still Water Prison possessed autonomous defense mechanisms that would prevent internal breaches.
The systems could detect unauthorized movement, seal compromised sections, flood entire levels with seawater if necessary. The prison could defend itself even if every human employee betrayed their duties.
The only viable method for releasing imprisoned pirates was external assault. Breaking in from outside rather than escaping from within.
This required two impossible conditions:
First: The military fortress of Rome itself—that massive structure housing tens of thousands of elite Marines—would need falling to foreign invasion. The walls would need breaching. The defenders would need overwhelming.
Second: All twelve Marine Admirals simultaneously would need being defeated or killed by external enemies. Every single one of these legendary combatants would need elimination.
Otherwise, Still Water Prison would literally never be destroyed from outside assault.
And honestly? If circumstances ever genuinely reached that catastrophic point—Rome fallen, twelve Admirals dead, the New Marine completely annihilated—the pirates imprisoned inside Still Water would no longer matter remotely.
The world would have far larger problems than escaped convict.
Hoshigaki Kisame descended toward Still Water Prison's entrance, preparing to visit the fish-man he'd once called brother before ideology had torn them apart.
Some conversations required happening face-to-face. Some debts required acknowledgment even across prison bars.
The Admiral disappeared into the depths, leaving Wendy to return to her quarters with Bonnie's cake and dreams of underwater kingdoms.
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