The scale of this particular operation had no precedent. The number of participants, the volume of supplies being consumed, the sheer organizational mass of it — nothing in the God's Knights' recent history came close.
The primary contestants were the God's Knights themselves. Behind them came a secondary tier: Celestial Dragons who had not spent their lives in comfort-induced stagnation, who had cultivated genuine combat ability and were reasonably reliable when field conditions stopped being theoretical. These were the competition's serious participants.
Then came the third group — Celestial Dragons who had paid to be included. No meaningful combat ability, no intention of competing for the top rankings, no interest in honor. Each of them had hired two bodyguards to accompany them onto the island, and each received half the standard points for any kills they accumulated. They weren't here for the leaderboard. They were here because the activity existed, and they could afford to participate in it, and that was sufficient reason.
The logistics of assembling this many Celestial Dragons in one place required time. Not all of them resided in Mary Geoise — the powerful ones moved constantly, traveling between territories, displaying their status across the world and expecting the world to adjust accordingly. Three days remained before the official start. When the sun rose on opening day, contestants would pour onto the island in a single wave and disperse freely from there. Anyone who arrived late would find the gates closed. Garling had made the cutoff absolute.
During the event, he would be on the island himself. The supreme referee's function was narrow but non-negotiable: if any contestant was caught killing another contestant, Garling would execute both parties on the spot. He would not listen to explanations. He did not have time, and precedent had taught him that the explanations were never worth hearing anyway. The rule existed to teach the younger generation of the God's Knights that the world outside Mary Geoise had genuine consequences — that not every problem resolved itself simply because you were who you were.
The contestants hadn't landed yet. The Marine had arrived first.
Elite units drawn from Marine Headquarters had moved into position around Wano's waters in the days prior, completing the encirclement before a single Celestial Dragon set foot on the island. The order was simple and applied uniformly: any ship appearing in this zone without authorization was an enemy vessel. Every warship in the formation had the right to open fire without escalation, without warning, without exception.
Citizens attempting to flee and pirates drawn toward the area by curiosity or opportunity were treated identically under this order. The guns didn't ask questions. Three days from now, the island's population would cease to be a problem — the soldiers running these calculations had made their peace with that conclusion.
On the highest deck of the largest battleship, Admiral Aramaki was working through his wine allocation.
His method was distinctive. Five fingers had extended into five separate root-like branches, each inserted into a different glass, allowing him to absorb and distinguish five varieties simultaneously. No mouth involved. Admiral Ryokugyu experienced things in ways that regular anatomy didn't permit, and he found this particular arrangement efficient and pleasant.
Below him, the frigates had already begun firing.
The citizens of Wano who had found boats — who had watched the Beasts Pirates strip the island and understood, correctly, that they were being abandoned to something they hadn't been told about — were being shelled as they tried to reach open water. The ocean surface was scattered with burning planks. Some of the warrior class had enough skill to deflect individual shells with sword technique; none of them could sustain that defense against hundreds of shells arriving simultaneously, and the sheer volume of fire overwhelmed them. The warships weren't a military problem to be outmaneuvered. They were a fact.
Those who made it past the initial barrage and reached the water discovered that the Marine had prepared torpedoes for exactly this contingency. Swimmers who survived long enough to approach the warship perimeter encountered them there.
No citizen of Wano Country had boarded a Marine vessel. None had broken the encirclement. In the estimation of most soldiers present, none would — not in three days, not at all.
Aramaki finished his wine, noted the pleasant blur at the edges of his thoughts, and called his adjutant. He had a secondary task to address.
A moment later, an unusual assembly of Marine personnel arranged itself on deck before him. Men and women, varied in appearance, not in standard-issue anything. They stood with the ease of people who were accustomed to being looked at without being officially seen.
Aramaki, still carrying the smell of his afternoon, felt mildly self-conscious about the formality of the scene he'd created. "Relax. Stop looking so serious. The assignment is simple — follow the contestants, record what happens, gather whatever information you can find. On the island, you move freely. The most important thing is that you come back alive."
The unit he was addressing had a full official name: the Marine Headquarters Special Confidential Force — known, by those who knew of it, as SWORD.
In practice, SWORD was a fiction maintained by paperwork. Its members had formally submitted their resignations and returned their Marine identification numbers to headquarters. On paper, they didn't exist. In reality, they operated under Admiral authority and drew Marine funding. They were not subject to Marine regulations because they were not, officially, Marine. Actions taken by SWORD in the field were not attributable to the institution. If an operation went wrong, if members died in a country the Marine had no acknowledged presence in, the organization's hands were clean.
What this meant, practically, was that SWORD could be sent anywhere to do anything. They were the black gloves. Sometimes they became a precision instrument that achieved what conventional forces couldn't. Sometimes they were a resource to be expended. The suicide squad framing wasn't sentimental — it was accurate.
The unit's current commander was a man with green hair and a hat of unusual length, the kind of hat that communicated something about personality without quite being able to explain itself. Within the Marine, he was considered genuinely good-looking, which had earned him the nickname Prince. His past was not something he highlighted in introductions.
"The parameters are broad, General Aramaki," he said, with the tone of someone who found broad parameters agreeable. "Free action suits SWORD's operational style."
Sky Screen character note: SWORD member — Prince Grus. User of the Paramecia-type Nendo Nendo no Mi (Clay-Clay Fruit).
Helmeppo stood in the formation without speaking. He was positioned between two female members, bald head down, not drawing attention. He had not been drawing attention for the entire briefing.
He was deeply opposed to what was happening outside the ship's hull.
The people of Wano had done nothing. They had lived inside an isolated country under Beasts Pirates occupation, survived conditions that were already brutal, and were now being shelled as they tried to leave — because a group of nobility needed a venue for a recreational activity. The scale of the injustice didn't have clean edges. It was enormous and shapeless, and he was standing in the middle of it wearing unofficial Marine colors and following orders from an Admiral who was absorbing wine through root-extensions of his fingers.
Even the Admirals couldn't reverse decisions made above their authority. Aramaki — radical, unsentimental, perfectly content to be the Marine's instrument in this operation — had been the designated Admiral for the assignment because he fit the requirements. Helmeppo held no rank that gave him standing to object through official channels. He had no say.
There were moments now when he questioned whether the justice he had signed up to serve existed in any meaningful form, or whether it was simply a label applied to whatever the people with the largest warships chose to do that week.
The female member beside him noticed his posture. "Uncle Helmeppo, don't overthink it. People like us don't get to make these calls. You'll drive yourself into a hole."
She was Tsuru's granddaughter, and she was the kind of person who made other Marine officers forget their professionalism on a regular basis. Blonde, composed, the kind of beauty that arrived in a room and rearranged the attention of everyone in it. She carried a whip as her standard equipment and had a relationship with pain — giving and receiving — that her colleagues had learned not to inquire about directly.
Helmeppo was a normal man. He noted her presence without his thoughts going anywhere he'd be embarrassed by. It was the least of his concerns right now.
Sky Screen character note: SWORD member — Kujaku. User of the Paramecia-type Muchi Muchi no Mi (Whip-Whip Fruit).