Charlotte Linlin, Kaido, and Newgate sat together at this moment.
The three of them were arranged in a loose triangle, no obvious hierarchy between them, no seat of honor. None of them had conceded to the others' authority, and none had accepted a lesser position. This coalition had no single leader. It was a partnership of three equals, and everyone understood that.
But at least the atmosphere was better than it had been back at Gran Tesoro.
There was no sarcasm. No undercurrent of scheming. Over the past several weeks of operating together, the three of them had spent most of their time in close proximity, and somewhere in that stretch, something had begun to feel almost familiar -- a faint echo of the old days in the Rocks Pirates, when this same combination of people had shared a deck.
Though it was different from that time, too. The Rocks Pirates had been defined as much by internal bloodshed as external conquest. That wasn't happening here. Not before they had dealt with the Marine. None of them was a fool, and everyone understood that even with three of them working together, defeating what the Marine had become was far from certain. Starting any kind of internal conflict in this condition would be an insult to all of their intelligence. They could destroy themselves without the Marine needing to lift a finger.
Everyone around this table was sharp enough to have survived to this point. That alone was proof enough that the others were worth trusting -- at least until the Marine was dealt with.
That said, it was noticeable that Charlotte Linlin and Kaido had settled into something a little warmer with each other. Old alliance habits, probably. It didn't matter much either way.
What mattered was that none of the three looked happy.
They each had a wine bowl in hand, but the mood didn't match the gesture. And given who these people were -- Kaido, Whitebeard, Charlotte Linlin, each of them genuinely formidable in mind as well as body -- their unhappiness had nothing to do with liquor or company. They could see the situation clearly. That was exactly the problem.
The plan had been good. They had all agreed on it after a great deal of deliberation, and it had been genuinely sound.
The core of it was straightforward: launch a coordinated offensive against the Marine's New World forces during the World Conference, with the specific aim of seizing the gateway waters. Once the entrance to the New World was back in pirate hands, the Marine Headquarters would lose its ability to freely project force into their territory. Resupply lines, reinforcements, large-scale deployments -- all of it would become exponentially more difficult.
With that chokepoint secured, the strategic picture changed completely. The pirates could fight a fluid war instead of a static one. Advance when favorable, retreat when necessary, exchange space for time, regroup, and preserve the option of a second engagement when conditions were better. It was a proper strategic framework, not just brute force.
And tactically, the timing of the World Conference wasn't accidental. All three of them understood what Mary Geoise was: a corrupt institution staffed by inefficient people who wielded enormous political leverage. The Marine was the most important defensive asset those people had. Hit during the Conference, shout the right things -- that you're coming for Mary Geoise, that the Celestial Dragons are next, that the whole rotten structure is coming down -- and it wouldn't even matter whether you could actually follow through. The banner alone would do the work.
With the combined reputation of Whitebeard, Charlotte Linlin, and Kaido behind that declaration, the momentum would be enough to send shockwaves through every noble house and royal delegation assembled at the Conference. The Celestial Dragons, the member-state kings, the Five Elders -- none of them had the nerve to sit still under that kind of pressure. They would immediately start demanding the Marine divert its strength to defending Mary Geoise rather than attacking the New World.
Whatever else those people might be incapable of, they were perfectly capable of being a drag. Getting in the way and demanding protection was what they did best.
The Marine wouldn't be afraid. The Marine's prior deployments had made that clear -- they were coming to the New World regardless, and they knew it. But the moment Mary Geoise started screaming for protection, the calculus would shift. Two admirals minimum would need to be pulled back. Possibly more. The Marine's strategic priority would rotate from "defeat the pirates" to "defend the Holy Land," and once that happened, the initiative was back in pirate hands.
It had been the best plan the three of them had been able to devise. And they had all agreed to it.
Then, on the very first day of the World Conference, everything fell apart.
Mary Geoise convulsed from within. The Marine force that had been positioned to protect the seat of world power turned on it instead. The Revolutionary Army -- the organization every government in the world had been calling the most dangerous criminal faction alive -- abruptly became the heroic side of the story. The Five Elders were gone. The Celestial Dragon class was uprooted entirely. The World Government, that eight-hundred-year institution, was dismantled from the inside out. And the Marine stood over the wreckage, holding all the power and answering to no one.
In a single day, every pressure point the three of them had planned to exploit ceased to exist.
The people on Mary Geoise who were supposed to hinder the Marine, the cowardly nobles and pompous kings who were supposed to scream for protection the moment a pirate threat materialized -- they were gone. Or subdued. Or suddenly very eager to cooperate with whoever was in charge now.
And Sakazuki was in the New World by the next morning. Ordered back by Fleet Admiral Sengoku the day after the dust settled, no hesitation, no delay. Whatever window might have existed for a surprise offensive had closed before they'd even had time to react. Fleet Admiral Sengoku's instincts had been correct, and his timing had been precise.
With the Marine's combat preparations already complete long before any of this, Sakazuki's return to the New World hadn't been rushed or chaotic. He had simply arrived and taken command. Even if Whitebeard and the coalition had committed to battle at that moment, the New World Marine forces could have held ground long enough for the Marineford contingent to reinforce. The math had stopped working in their favor.
So they'd pulled back. Decided not to act rashly. Given up their original battle plan and gone quiet, watching and waiting, hoping the situation might still shift.
Somewhere in the back of all three minds had been a small, stubborn hope. The World Government had lasted eight hundred years. Something that had endured that long didn't simply vanish without leaving behind people who wanted to restore it. There had to be remnants. Ambitious people. Former officers of the World Government's institutions, dispossessed nobles, ideological loyalists -- someone willing to raise a banner and fight back, drag the Marine into a new civil conflict, buy pirates a second chance.
It was a reasonable theory.
But they had waited more than two months now, the calendar pushing toward SCC 1517, and those imagined remnants had produced nothing. Not a declaration. Not a skirmish. Not even a rumor of organized resistance.
Instead, what had emerged from Mary Geoise was the Pan-World Convention -- a new international body, clean and structured, built on the wreckage of the old one. Looking at the framework alone was enough to tell you it had been designed specifically to replace everything the World Government had been. The Revolutionary Army was sitting inside it as a legitimate participant. A direct enemy of the Marine, now absorbed into the new order, removing them from the board entirely.
The number of forces capable of threatening the Marine, from outside or from within, had just dropped significantly.
There was no one left who might come to the pirates' aid. No levers left to pull. The war potential the Marine had always been forced to hold in reserve against World Government interference could now be deployed without restriction or negotiation.
The situation had become worse than if they had simply committed to fighting Sakazuki directly the moment he arrived.
There was even a bitter possibility that if they had struck first and started the chaos early, they might have given those World Government remnants the opening they needed to organize. A major pirate offensive while Mary Geoise was still reeling might have been enough to shake loose some kind of response. It wasn't impossible.
But that moment was gone. One misstep had cost them the initiative. Every step since had widened the gap.
So none of them were in a good mood. They could see exactly how the position had deteriorated, and seeing it clearly didn't make it any more comfortable to sit with.
After a few long, quiet sips of wine, Kaido's patience ran out.
He slammed his bowl down hard enough to rattle the table. "So what's the plan? If it comes down to it, we fight. That's it. You're both being too careful. I said from the start that the moment Sakazuki came back, there was no more time to wait." His voice was flat and hard, not a shout but something worse -- controlled anger from someone who was usually anything but controlled. "You kept saying to hold off, to look for a better opening. And now look at where we are. Every day we wait, the path gets narrower. You haven't found your opening, and dying is starting to look more and more likely."
Under normal circumstances, Whitebeard would not have let that kind of address go without a response.
But Kaido was right, and Whitebeard knew it. When Sakazuki had arrived in the New World, Kaido had argued for immediate engagement and Newgate had hesitated, wanting a cleaner situation first. Charlotte Linlin had agreed with waiting. The result had been this -- two months of slow deterioration, initiative lost, the window for a coordinated offensive shrinking by the week.
Kaido had been right then, and nothing he was saying now was unfair.
Newgate was quiet for a long moment, something settling in his eyes. A kind of resolution. Whatever it was -- life or death, a good fight or a grinding one -- it didn't frighten him. If it came down to it, he'd trade blows with the Marine until one side broke. If he could land a clean shot on Sakazuki before the end, so much the better.
But before Newgate could speak, Charlotte Linlin, who had been sitting in silence for a long time, let out a slow breath.
"There's one way out," she said. "But it costs everything to use."
Both Kaido and Newgate looked at her.
Of the three, Whitebeard was the pillar of raw force. Kaido was the edge of it -- reckless momentum, overwhelming aggression. But Charlotte Linlin was the one who moved the pieces. The Big Mom Pirates' intelligence network was the best in the pirate world, and her organization's financial reach was unmatched. In any prolonged war, the first resource that ran out was money, and the second was information. She had more of both than either of them.
When she spoke about strategy, you listened.
"What do you mean?" Newgate asked, his voice low.
Charlotte Linlin was quiet for another moment. Then: "A mutually destructive strategy. Have you ever heard of the legend of the three islands at the end of the world?"
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