"Your Highness the Prince!"
"Your Highness!"
"Prince Edre!"
Those nobles who withstood the pressure rushed forward to check on their princes, concerned above all for their royal scions.
"Marshal Kong has gone too far! We will file a protest with the Gorosei!"
A heavily armored noble, clutching his pregnant, fainted prince, shouted angrily. Just moments earlier his prince had been on Kong's side, pointing and hurling insults, but in the blink of an eye the nobles had switched positions.
The uproar among the allied nobles went on a long while before it briefly died down. Sakazuki, who had been watching silently, finally realized the situation might be much worse than he'd thought.
Before he could conscript the allied troops responsible for building the defenses into his army, he had to find a way to resolve the disputes between those soldiers and their commanders.
For the princes who represented their countries, this holy land defense was a rare chance to gain prestige and visibility—pleasing the World Government and stealing a little limelight. They didn't much care if their troops got used as cannon fodder.
But the nobles who actually commanded the troops could not afford such consequences. The units summoned by the World Government were nearly always each country's elite. If these forces were lost, those nobles' domestic standing and influence would plummet.
"Then get moving—old man here has no time for dawdling!"
Fleet Admiral Kong waved his hand dismissively, his tone laced with irritation.
Seeing that the Fleet Admiral refused to budge, the nobles from the allied nations could only leave headquarters in anger, taking their princes with them and preparing to complain directly to the Five Elders.
This wasn't the first time such a thing had happened. If all the nobles of the allied nations could actually unite, even Kong wouldn't be able to completely silence their voices.
Unfortunately, unity was impossible for them. Not only were there grudges between different nations, but even nobles from the same country could barely agree on anything.
Being able to band together to demand an explanation from Kong—or to group up and file a complaint to the Five Elders—was already the absolute limit of what they could achieve.
"Fleet Admiral, are you sure this is fine? If we let those allied nobles go complain, I'm worried they might twist things in front of the Five Elders…"
Watching the angry nobles storm out, Vice Admiral Doberman couldn't help but speak up in concern.
"If the Five Elders don't even trust me with something this small," Kong growled darkly, "then they might as well find someone else to lead this war!"
A shadow flickered across Kong's face. Ever since he'd been appointed commander of the Holy Land Defense Corps, he had carried deep resentment over the matter.
Though he had already betrayed the Five Elders and sided with Kizaru, becoming a double agent, the Five Elders had made their decision before learning that truth.
"Fleet Admiral! Watch your words!"
Akainu was stunned, but ever loyal to the World Government, he immediately tried to caution him.
Doberman was even more alarmed. He could hardly believe Kong dared to say something like that aloud. If anyone reported it to the Five Elders and they decided to take it seriously, they could strip Kong of his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
Spider, who was nearest the door, even stepped outside to make sure the departing nobles were out of earshot.
"Hmph! I should be the one asking you—what's going on between you and that Kizaru? What the hell is Marineford doing?!"
Kong questioned Akainu sharply, taking the initiative to play the accuser. After all, no one in Mariejois knew about his secret alliance with Kizaru. From his standpoint as a former Fleet Admiral, he had every right to question a current admiral's actions.
The Five Elders would've liked nothing more than to immediately brand Marineford as treasonous. But with the Dark Matter Pirates preparing to strike, declaring the Navy traitors at such a time would only shatter morale among their own ranks.
So even though they despised Kizaru to the core, the Five Elders chose to suppress the truth—at least until the Holy Land Defense War was over.
Of course, no matter how much they tried to cover it up, someone like Kong could easily see through everything. That was why he confronted Akainu so bluntly.
"How would I know what that guy Kizaru is thinking?" Akainu snapped coldly. "As for Marineford—ever since they disobeyed the Five Elders' orders, they've been nothing but outright rebels!"
That was the fundamental difference between Akainu and veterans like Sengoku or the old guard of the Navy.
To Akainu, the Navy existed solely as a tool to uphold the rule of the World Government. A tool wasn't supposed to have its own will. If necessary, he'd sacrifice every last marine—as long as the Government survived, the Navy could always be rebuilt later.
But for Sengoku and the older generation, protecting the Navy's interests had become second nature. When those interests clashed with the Government's, they would unhesitatingly stand with the Navy.
Originally, Kong had shared Akainu's views. But Kizaru's offer had simply been too tempting. Only someone who had experienced the miraculous effects of pure gold—the eternal youth it bestowed—could truly understand why Kong had abandoned his old convictions.
"Don't act on your own! The Five Elders still haven't decided how to handle the situation at Marineford. As an admiral of the navy, you'd better be careful with every word and action you take!"
Marshal Kong's face darkened as he scolded Sakazuki in a low voice. If they followed Sakazuki's reasoning, wouldn't that make Kong himself one of the rebels? Even if it was true, it didn't stop the marshal's opinion of Sakazuki from sinking even lower.
"Marshal, what's the current defensive situation in Mary Geoise? We brought the full forces of G-1 Branch. That should be enough to make a real difference in the coming battle…"
Seeing Sakazuki about to argue back, the mild-natured Doberman quickly cut in, preventing a direct clash between Kong and Sakazuki.
"We originally assumed that Boros would linger at G-1 for a while, so we made certain preparations there. But it turns out those pirates had no interest in G-1 at all…"
The sharp-minded Onigumo also spoke up to redirect everyone's attention. As the navy's "gateway" to the New World—and one of its most important strongholds—G-1 Branch was only about a three- to four-day voyage from Mary Geoise.
Even though marine warships were slightly faster than the Cosmic Dark Matter Pirates' massive fleet, by the time Sakazuki and the others arrived at Mary Geoise, Boros's fleet had already bypassed G-1 entirely. The vanguard ships were now appearing in the waters surrounding the Holy Land itself.
If Mary Geoise hadn't already prepared its defenses, the pirates could easily catch them completely off guard.
"Don't worry," Marshal Kong finally said after a pause, his tone edged with irritation. "The Five Elders have already deployed the Divine Legion and the Army around the Holy Land. Our job is simply to hold the Red Port."
According to the Five Elders' plan, it was obvious that Kong and his Holy Land Guard Corps were being used as the first line of defense.
Even the temporarily conscripted slaves of the Celestial Dragons had been positioned behind the Red Port—at the bubble-pod defensive line. True, the slaves could only serve as expendable cannon fodder and couldn't properly operate the fortifications there, but the mere thought of being reduced to a shield for slaves made Kong's resentment toward the Five Elders deepen even further.
"What about troop numbers? How many soldiers do we actually have available?"
Sakazuki ignored the bitterness in Kong's tone. Though often called ruthless and cold-blooded, he wasn't the mindless "mad dog" people imagined him to be.
He knew full well that the former Fleet Admiral Steel-Bone Kong still held enormous influence over the navy's reconstruction efforts. Offending him now would be foolish.
Of course, expecting Sakazuki to apologize was equally impossible—so, much like Doberman and Onigumo, he changed the subject.
"Roughly seventy thousand troops in total," Kong replied frankly. "But the quality is… questionable. The real combat-ready main force amounts to about twenty-five thousand. Beyond that, we've organized a reserve army from the Mary Geoise slaves—around twenty thousand strong."
There was no attempt to hide anything; these weren't exactly state secrets. And with Sakazuki's and the others' experience, they could easily estimate the numbers just by walking around Red Port.
From the start, the Five Elders and the World Government had planned to abandon the Red Port. Not only were the Divine Legion and the Army kept within Mary Geoise itself, but the best soldiers from the allied nations' reinforcements had been taken away under various pretexts—leaving only the dregs behind.
Otherwise, the noble factions of those allied nations wouldn't have fallen into such bitter infighting. Their most capable fighters were all stationed in Mary Geoise, while the ones left behind were little better than worms.
"If those troops at the port are the best we've got, that's… worrisome."
Sakazuki, who had just been considering recruiting the so-called "elite" soldiers for his own command, now found himself disappointed by what the Five Elders had left behind.
Back during the Marineford War, over 100,000 elite marines and countless officers were mobilized just to fight the Whitebeard Pirates.
All three admirals had been present, as well as nearly every vice admiral and even the entire giant corps. With the Shichibukai's help, Whitebeard had been buried there.
And though Red-Haired Shanks and the Revolutionary Army had interfered near the end, the Cosmic Dark Matter Pirates' current strength was, on paper, no weaker than the combined might of Whitebeard's and Shanks's crews.
With Boros himself—who could suppress two pirate emperors—as their leader, the power gap was so massive that even Sakazuki felt a chill at the thought.
"This fight is completely hopeless!"
Doberman couldn't help but complain aloud. He'd known it would be a difficult war, but not this impossible.
Onigumo didn't speak, but the grim expression on his face said it all. The veteran vice admiral clearly wasn't in a good mood either.
°°°
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