While York's deep ideological persuasion of Zephyr and Sakazuki was systematically ongoing in the maximum-security dungeons of Vodka Island, the Marine high command, personally led by Fleet Admiral Sengoku, had already begun desperate, covert attempts to open a diplomatic channel with the Crimson Harvest Pirates.
They first rushed a vanguard fleet to the nearest secure Marine base, then dispatched a single, unflagged warship into the neutral waters framing the Crimson Harvest Pirates' absolute territory. Finally, from that ship, they lowered a small, inconspicuous single-person rowboat to attempt a stealth landing on the outer beaches.
The Crimson Harvest Pirates responsible for routine coastal patrols immediately noticed the tiny vessel cutting through the waves. After intercepting the traveler and verifying his diplomatic status, they quickly reported the unexpected news directly to the palace.
York chose not to show up in person. He simply monitored the perimeter from afar with his Observation Haki, instead choosing to directly send Ginny and Kuma to handle the close-range, frontline negotiations at the shoreline.
"Are you the official Marine envoy?"
Ginny stood on the sandy beach of the port, her hands resting casually on her hips. She brought Kuma along with her, and the two, leading several heavily armed pirate followers, stared down at the solitary Marine envoy who had just stepped onto the shore.
"Yes, I am," the young man replied smoothly.
The envoy was a tall, lanky recruit wearing a standard-issue Marine uniform and a yellow knit cap pulled low over his forehead. Ginny and Kuma both had a distinct, sharp impression of him; they had clearly spotted his laid-back aura amidst the chaos back on Firedrop Island. Furthermore, he was the exact same cunning rookie who had stealthily participated in the Pirate Triathlon beside Ivankov and successfully walked away with the second-place prize of thirty million Berries.
Borsalino adopted an intentionally humble, non-threatening posture, though his eyes remained sharp beneath his cap.
"The Marine high command would politely like to inquire: if we wish to safely redeem the high-value prisoners currently captured by Mr. York... what specific kind of transaction must our side reach with your pirate crew?"
Ginny pondered briefly, a mocking smirk playing on her lips as she perfectly recited the exact extortionate negotiating script York had drilled into her beforehand.
"Our Captain's demands are incredibly simple!" Ginny declared. "Hand over the bodies of Admiral Zephyr's wife and children, and we will immediately release Vice Admiral Tsuru and that loudmouthed recruit, Sakazuki."
Borsalino's lazy expression fractured, his brow furrowing slightly.
As an elite student currently studying directly under Zephyr at the Marine Academy, others in the rank-and-file might not be aware of the internal tragedy, but Borsalino knew the grim details all too well. Teacher Zephyr's beloved wife and children had already tragically died at the very beginning of this year—viciously murdered by a vengeful pirate crew because their private home address had been compromised.
If not for that devastating emotional collapse, Teacher Zephyr would never have voluntarily retreated to the secondary line to serve as a mere academy instructor; he would still be an active, devastating Admiral operating on the front lines of the New World!
Under these bleak logistical circumstances, if the opponent forcefully demanded Zephyr's living family, the Marines simply could not produce them.
Therefore, Borsalino tactfully, slowly explained the reality to Ginny. "Unfortunately, Admiral Zephyr's wife and children suffered a ruthless pirate attack at the beginning of this year... they are no longer among the living."
Ginny raised an eyebrow in feigned surprise, while Kuma beside her was visibly, honestly startled by the tragic revelation. Although Borsalino hadn't finished the grim sentence, the full meaning was brutally clear.
Fortunately, Ginny already knew about this event beforehand, as York had explicitly told her during their tactical brief that Zephyr had transitioned into an instructor precisely because his family had been slaughtered. Now, she was simply flawlessly cooperating with the performance.
After deliberately showing a look of deep, calculated difficulty, Ginny sighed helplessly, sounding slightly disgusted yet strictly bound by her duty.
"Even if they are dead, our crew still demands their remains," Ginny stated coldly, her voice unyielding. "'Alive, we want the person; dead, we want the corpse.' That is the absolute, literal order our Captain gave me. We expect the coffins delivered."
Borsalino's face suddenly darkened, a rare flash of genuine anger rippling through his tone.
"Mr. York's request seems a bit entirely excessive, don't you think?" Borsalino drawled, his voice dropping an octave. "Teacher Zephyr's family became deceased earlier this year. Are you pirates truly going to disturb even the sacred rest of the departed?!"
"That is simply, utterly inhumane!!"
Seeing that the usually lazy Marine was actually provoked into anger, Ginny immediately adopted an aggressive, dominant pirate posture of her own, stepping forward fiercely.
"If your high command wants to accept the terms, accept them! If you don't want to accept them, then turn your boat around and get the hell off our beach!!" Ginny barked.
"The Marines are the ones currently begging us for a massive favor right now! Don't you dare mistake the relationship here, recruit!"
With that decisive shut-down, Ginny pulled Kuma by the arm, turned entirely on her heel, and walked back toward the palace, showing absolutely zero reluctance, hesitation, or room for leverage.
Borsalino quietly, tensely watched their retreating backs disappear into the island's fortifications. He let out a slow sigh, boarded his small rowboat, and rowed slowly back toward the cloaked warship waiting on the horizon.
After boarding the warship, Borsalino immediately went to the communications room and contacted Admiral Sengoku, who was holding the line from a hidden command vessel further out at sea, via an encrypted Transponder Snail.
When Borsalino recounted the exact, unyielding details of the beach negotiation, Sengoku couldn't help but slam his fist onto his desk, his brow furrowing into deep, painful lines.
'York's calculated attitude proves he only intends to trade Tsuru and Sakazuki,' Sengoku analyzed grimly. 'He has absolutely zero intention of releasing Zephyr under these terms, and he's actively demanding the remains of a fallen family.'
Should the Marines swallow their pride and agree to York's morbid demands?
Assuming they capitulated and handed over the excavated remains of Zephyr's wife and son to the Crimson Harvest Pirates, the tactical fallout would be catastrophic.
First, regardless of whether York possessed some dark, hidden motive after obtaining the corpses, he would undeniably gain psychological leverage over Zephyr. Even if Zephyr found a miraculous chance to physically escape the dungeons in the future, as long as the bodies of his loved ones were securely locked in York's vaults, the broken Admiral would never be able to truly leave the New World and return to the service of the Marines.
Furthermore, the literal act of handing over the remains of an active Admiral's family to a notorious pirate crew was inherently, fundamentally devastating to global Marine morale.
After all, it was already a massive institutional disgrace that the Marines had completely failed to protect their own Admiral's wife and son from assassination in their own home. If they now proved they could not even properly protect their buried bodies from being dug up and bartered by pirates, what internal meaning or honor did the concept of Marine Justice still hold?!
'Soldiers bleed and die for the World Government, only for the bodies of their murdered families to be handed over to pirates as bartering chips...' Sengoku thought, his chest tightening with disgust. 'What kind of twisted justice are we damn well protecting if we allow this?!'
Those were all the massive, glaring disadvantages of agreeing.
But the desperate benefits were equally undeniable: Vice Admiral Tsuru, the greatest tactical mind of her generation, and the incredibly promising rookie, Sakazuki, would both return safely to the ranks.
From another perspective, saving them could also serve to desperately boost morale among the new generation. If the world saw that the Marines were willing to pay such an extortionate, unprecedented price just to save Sakazuki—who was merely a recruit—shouldn't this radically encourage the youth of the world to offer more fanatical support and enthusiastically enlist in the military?
Truly, the catastrophic pros and cons existed simultaneously on a knife's edge, making a definitive decision almost impossible to comfortably reach.
In comparison, the dark consequences of outright refusing the trade were far simpler and more immediate.
First, setting aside the permanent loss of an active Admiral-level asset and a future monster rookie, Marineford's internal morale would take a massive, fatal hit. If a legendary Vice Admiral was captured alive and the high command openly refused to even attempt a rescue, the rank-and-file would become entirely disheartened, destroying institutional loyalty.
Second, the raw loss in total combat power was something the Marines simply could not afford to accept right now with the Rocks era remnants running wild. Losing both Tsuru and Zephyr simultaneously was functionally equivalent to losing two top-tier Admirals in one go.
Although Tsuru's individual, physical combat power had not yet reached the destructive peak of an Admiral, her true, terrifying strength lay in her peerless intellect. As a master operational strategist, the role she played in directing a global battlefield was not a single fraction weaker than that of an active Admiral.
And that wasn't even factoring in the rookie, Sakazuki. He was a young, volcanic genius who was already heavily projected to easily grow into an Admiral within the decade.
Rounding it up, refusing this trade was equivalent to the Marines losing three Admirals' worth of historical, current, and future strategic power in a single week.
The sheer price of refusal was simply too astronomical to bear, and Sengoku instinctively could not bring himself to choose it.
Just like that, a grueling night passed.
Sengoku pondered the board all night long inside his dim cabin, his eyes heavily bloodshot and strained from a profound lack of sleep. Finally, as the dawn broke over the sea, he made his agonizing decision—to fully agree to the Flame Emperor's extortionate terms!
Of course, he had heavily considered trying to haggle or offer mountains of gold and high-grade iron instead. But as Ginny had brutally pointed out on the beach, this was entirely the victor's charity. The Marines were the desperate party begging for a favor, and a beggar had absolutely no right to haggle with the devil.
Thus, the knit-capped Borsalino was once again appointed as the official envoy, piloting the small rowboat back toward the shore under the morning sun.
After landing on the sand, he met Ginny and Kuma once more, exactly as expected. This time, Borsalino no longer allowed himself to show any emotion or anger; he merely, calmly conveyed Admiral Sengoku's final institutional intentions.
"We can formally agree to your terms of trade! But our high command also has a few strict demands that must be met for this exchange to proceed."
Ginny let out a sharp scoff, crossing her arms. "The pathetic party asking us for a favor actually thinks they're in a position to make demands?!"
She paused, waving her hand dismissively. "Whatever, I'm too lazy to waste my breath arguing with a green messenger like you. State them clearly. Whether our Captain chooses to agree or simply execute your friends is entirely up to our Captain."
Borsalino steadied his stance on the sand and clearly stated the three conditions.
"First: We require adequate time to safely exhume and securely transfer the remains of Admiral Zephyr's wife and children from the central territory. This logistical process will take at least one week."
Ginny nodded slightly, her expression if-indifferent. "No problem. I can authorize that timeline demand right here on behalf of our crew. We grant you one week."
"Second," Borsalino continued, his voice turning dead serious. "Upon taking possession of the caskets, your crew must properly, respectfully keep and bury the remains of Admiral Zephyr's family! I assume your crew wouldn't want to eventually face an unchained, apocalyptic Admiral Zephyr who is solely focused on a blood-feud of revenge, would you?"
Ginny scoffed again, her tone dripping with pride.
"You don't need to waste your breath worrying about that, Marine. We have our own highly specific, valuable reasons for demanding their remains. The Crimson Harvest Pirates utterly disdain to do something as incredibly low-class and petty as simply insulting the quiet rest of the dead!"
"Third!" Borsalino stated the final, non-negotiable condition.
"The exact coordinate location of the physical trade will be decided entirely by us! Both parties will hand over their respective targets simultaneously in neutral territory, and neither side shall attempt to deploy any hidden fleets or cross-deceptions!!"
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