Mary Geoise. The Holy Land. Top of the Red Line. The place where the people who run the world sit in fancy chairs and pretend everything is fine while the ocean below them burns.
The doors to the Chamber of the Five Elders opened.
Shanks walked in.
Red hair. Three scars over his left eye. Black cape. The kind of walk that said "I belong here" despite being a pirate with a four-billion bounty who should have been arrested the moment he stepped on government property.
The Gorosei sat in their usual positions. Five old men who collectively looked like a law firm that had been open since before the Void Century.
"Red-Haired Shanks," one of them said. "You again."
Shanks stopped in the centre of the room. Looked around. Then snapped his fingers like he'd just remembered something.
"Ah — I nearly forgot."
His body shifted.
Not like a Devil Fruit transformation. Like a disguise coming off. His frame shrank. His limbs thinned. His red hair stayed — but his face elongated, his nose twitched, his eyes went beady and small. A tail sprouted from behind his cape. Whiskers appeared.
Where "Red-Haired" Shanks had been standing was now a four-foot-tall rat.
A rat with red hair.
The Red-Haired Rat.
He adjusted his tiny cape. Scratched behind one ear with a back paw. Twitched his whiskers.
"Right," the rat said, in Shanks's exact voice coming out of a rodent face. "Updates."
The Gorosei didn't react. This was normal for them. This was a Tuesday.
"There's a new one," the rat said, pacing on all fours across the marble floor. "Some brat showed up on Mihawk's island. No bounty. No crew. No name I could find."
"And?"
"Mihawk had to try."
The room went quiet.
One of the Elders leaned forward. "Mihawk had to TRY? Against an unknown?"
"Perfect Mihawk Upscale," the rat said, nodding. "Blud pulled out a sword — some busted thing with duct tape on it — and Mihawk still had to swing Yoru. Didn't use the little cross knife. Went straight for the real blade."
"That means this unknown forced the World's Strongest swordsman to take him seriously."
"I mean he one-shotted the guy after but still."
The rat sat on its hind legs and scratched its chin with a tiny paw.
"I don't know where he came from. No Devil Fruit I could sense. No haki signature I recognised. He just showed up, caught Mihawk painting his—"
The rat stopped.
The Gorosei stared.
"Painting his what?" one of them asked.
"Nothing. Forget I said that. Moving on."
One of the Elders stood. The tall one with the dreadlocks.
"This is irrelevant compared to the larger threat. The Straw Hat Pirates continue to destabilise the balance of the world. Monkey D. Luffy and his crew are the TRUE evil of this era."
The other Elders nodded.
"Their influence spreads. Islands freed. Governments toppled. The order we have maintained for eight hundred years crumbles everywhere that boy sets foot."
"But fear not," another Elder said, clasping his hands together with the serene confidence of a man who had never once been punched in the face. "Our Lord and Saviour Imu-sama will cleanse the world with her kindness."
"Her boundless, infinite kindness," a third Elder added.
"The kindness that erased an entire island from existence," the fourth Elder said, without a hint of irony.
"Truly the most merciful being to ever exist," the fifth concluded.
They all nodded in solemn agreement.
The rat stood up. Brushed off its tiny cape.
"Right. I'm out. Got pirate stuff to fake."
It scurried toward the door. Tiny red-haired tail dragging behind it. Claws clicking on the marble.
At the threshold, the rat stopped. Its body shifted again — growing, expanding, the tail retracting, the whiskers vanishing, the beady eyes widening into the confident gaze of an Emperor.
Shanks stood at the door. Full height. Red hair. Back to ""normal.""
He looked over his shoulder.
"Keep me posted on the duct tape kid, if yah can." Shanks said.
Then he walked out.
The doors closed behind him.
The Gorosei sat in silence.
"...Should we investigate the unknown?" one asked.
"No," another replied. "Imu-sama's kindness will handle it."
They nodded.
The kindness that erased islands.
Truly, the World Government was in good hands.