A heavy silence fell. A Buster Call was a final solution. Using it preemptively on multiple kingdoms was… unprecedented. It was genocide as policy.
Mars nodded slowly. "It is the only language they will understand now. Fear must be restored. Let the flames of our retribution be the new global broadcast. Let the name of Ragnar become synonymous with the death he brought upon his followers."
The decision, grim and monstrous, was made in that room. Orders began to flow, authorizing a level of overt brutality the World Government had rarely committed to paper.
They cursed Ragnar with every fiber of their being, not for killing the Dragons, but for forcing them to reveal the monstrous, naked face of their power so openly.
He had made them desperate, and a desperate god is the most dangerous beast of all.
…..
Marineford, Fleet Admiral's Office….
The office was a cacophony of stress. Den Den Mushis rang incessantly, each one a new emergency. Junior officers rushed in and out with piles of dispatches, their faces pale.
Fleet Admiral Sengoku sat behind his desk, but he wasn't really there. His eyes were fixed on a point a thousand miles away, the bags under them darker than ever.
The plan, the careful, dignified transition of power to Aokiji, the restructuring after the war lay in ashes. Everything was ashes. He felt every one of his years, and a hundred more.
Across from him, Aokiji, Kuzan, slouched in a chair, occasionally issuing a calm order to a passing officer but mostly observing the meltdown with detached, icy clarity.
He understood the scale of the disaster. He also understood that the chair Sengoku was sitting in had just become a throne of living magma.
And then there was Garp.
Garp was sitting on the windowsill, looking out at the ruined bay, happily munching on a bag of rice crackers. Each loud crunch was a tiny hammer blow to Sengoku's fraying nerves.
With every new report"Rebellion in East Blue Sector 4!" "King of Ilisia requests immediate Marine intervention… wait, the line went dead, sir!"
"Cipher Pol reports revolutionary army activity coordinating with local insurgents!" Garp would chuckle, or let out a satisfied "Hmph!" or worse, offer commentary.
"Oho, the kids in Sorbet got some spirit! Good for them!"
"Tch, those nobles in Trevino had it coming, charging people for 'air taxes.' Stupid."
"See, Sengoku? This is what happens when you let paperwork replace principles! The whole world's calling your bluff! Bwahahaha!"
Sengoku's eye twitched. A vein throbbed at his temple. The ringing phones, the panicked reports, the sheer impossibility of it all was a symphony of failure, and Garp's cheerful crunching was the maddening percussion section.
Finally, a young lieutenant rushed in, saluting sharply, terror in his eyes. "Fleet Admiral! Urgent from Mary Geoise! The Five Elders have issued Priority Alpha Directive…" he gulped,
"…authorizing pre-emptive Buster Calls on Sorbet, Ilisia, and Trevino Kingdoms. Orders are to mobilize Admiral Kizaru and the nearest fleets immediately. No warning shots. Total annihilation protocol."
The blood drained from Sengoku's face. Even Aokiji sat up straight, his lazy demeanor gone. "They can't be serious…" Kuzan muttered.
Garp's crunching stopped. The laughter died in his throat. For a moment, the only sound was the frantic buzz of the other Den Den Mushis.
Then, Garp's face darkened. "Those cowardly old lizards," he growled, the humor gone from his voice.
"Can't fight the real enemy, so they murder the civilians who got brave. Disgusting."
Sengoku found his voice, hoarse and exhausted. "Acknowledge the directive, Lieutenant. Tell Kizaru to… to stand by for final launch codes." The words tasted like ash.
The lieutenant saluted and fled.
Silence descended, heavier than before. The weight of the impending atrocity pressed down on the room. Sengoku slowly put his head in his hands, his shoulders slumping.
The mantle of Fleet Admiral wasn't something he could hand off anymore. It was a curse he would carry to his grave, now stained with the blood of millions.
Crunch.
Sengoku's head snapped up. Garp had taken another rice cracker from the bag.
Something in Sengoku, the last frayed thread of his composure, snapped. It wasn't a strategic thought. It was pure irritation.
In one swift motion, Sengoku lunged across his desk, his hand shooting out not for a report, not for a Den Den Mushi, but for the half-eaten bag of rice crackers in Garp's lap. He snatched it, pulling it back to his side of the desk.
Garp froze, the cracker halfway to his open mouth. He looked at his empty hand, then at the bag now clutched in Sengoku's white-knuckled grip.
His expression cycled through confusion, disbelief, and finally, profound, personal betrayal.
"Ah! Those were mine!" Garp boomed, standing up so fast the windowsill creaked. He pointed an accusing finger at Sengoku.
"You thief! You stole a man's snacks in his moment of moral outrage! Have you no shame?!"
Sengoku, a vein now visibly pulsing on his forehead, deliberately took a cracker from the bag, placed it in his mouth, and chewed with exaggerated slowness, staring Garp dead in the eye.
"Hmph. Shut up," he said around the mouthful, crumbs spraying onto his important, world-ending documents.
For Aokiji, the sheer absurdity of the scene, the two legendary Marines, heroes who shaped the age, one having just authorized a war crime, the other morally wounded over stolen crackers, was too much.
He let out a short, sharp bark of laughter before clamping a hand over his mouth, his shoulders shaking silently.
Garp's eye twitched in perfect unison with Sengoku's. "Oh, it's like that, is it? You think because you're Fleet Admiral you can just confiscate a citizen's legally purchased rice crackers? I'll have you know that's tyranny! The same kind of tyranny that's getting its face kicked in all over the world right now!"
"This," Sengoku hissed, standing up as well, brandishing the bag, "is the only thing in this entire damn world that isn't screaming at me right now! And you were making noise with it!"
"It's a snack, not a stress ball, you polished Buddha!" Garp shot back.
"Give me one good reason I shouldn't court-martial you for insubordination and snack-based terrorism!"
"My grandson just proved gods can die and you're worried about my snacking?! Give those back!"
"NO! AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN GRANDSON!? DON'T TELL ME THAT RAGNAR WAS ALSO BROUGHT UP BY YOU!?"
"NO! BUT I DECIDED HE IS MY GRANDSON!"
"NOW PAY THE PRICE, YOU SOON GOING BALD BANDIT!"
What happened next would be etched into the memories of every marine within earshot, and later become a beloved piece of apocryphal legend.
Fleet Admiral Sengoku, the Strategic Buddha, and Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp, the Hero of the Marines, did not engage in a clash of advanced Armament Haki or world-shattering Conqueror's bursts.
Garp threw a straightforward, lightning-fast right hook aimed at Sengoku's shoulder. Sengoku, still holding the cracker bag aloft in his left hand, blocked with his forearm, the impact producing a sound like two oak trees colliding. The shockwave blew the papers off his desk.
"You senile old fool!" Sengoku grunted, retaliating with a palm thrust to Garp's chest.
"Thieving vulture!" Garp retorted, taking the hit and using the momentum to spin into a leg sweep.
They grappled, knocking over a chair, then a bookcase filled with centuries of maritime law. They weren't using their full, island-breaking strength, but it was still a titanic scuffle.
A punch meant for Sengoku's gut missed and put a Garp-sized fist-shaped dent in the reinforced wall. A kick from Sengoku sent Garp stumbling back, but he used the motion to snatch a decorative potted plant and hurl it like a discus.
Sengoku ducked, and the plant exploded against the portrait of a previous Fleet Admiral.
Aokiji had wisely rolled his chair back into a corner, watching the spectacle with wide eyes, occasionally using a puff of his Ice power to deflect flying debris like a splintered chair leg or a stray inkwell.
He made no move to stop them. This was clearly a necessary, if bizarre, pressure valve.
They ended up on the floor, a tangle of limbs and white coats, wrestling over the now-crushed bag of rice crackers. Sengoku had Garp in a headlock. Garp had his foot hooked around Sengoku's ankle.
"Admit it! You're stressed because deep down, you know the kid's right!" Garp grunted, his face pressed into the carpet.
"I am stressed because the world is ending and my best friend is a chaotic, snack-obsessed moron!" Sengoku yelled back, trying to pry Garp's fingers off the bag.
"The world's not ending! It's just finally waking up! OW! That's my ear!"
"Serves you right!"
At that moment, the door opened, and Tsuru walked in, holding a fresh stack of crisis reports.
She took in the scene: the destroyed office, the two most powerful Marines in history wrestling on the floor like schoolboys over a bag of crumbs, and Aokiji giving her a helpless shrug from the corner.
She didn't sigh. She didn't yell. She simply walked over, reached down with impeccable timing, and plucked the mangled bag of rice crackers from their intertwined grasp.
Both men froze, then they looked up at her.