In the office of the Director of the National Security Bureau, Kuro loosened his tie, exhaled deeply, and slumped into his chair.
In front of him stood several senior officials of the Security Bureau.
"Director, we have so much intelligence work to handle here. Sending you to the Grand Line at a time like this—doesn't it just create unnecessary chaos?" one of them asked.
"This is the Governor's order," Kuro replied flatly.
As expected, once they heard it was William's command, no one dared to speak further. Even those who might have feigned indignation to curry favor with Kuro kept silent.
For those in intelligence work, the greatest fear was information leaks. Secrets were valuable precisely because the fewer people knew about them, the better.
"I built the Intelligence Bureau from the ground up; I can't stay here forever," Kuro said, breaking the silence himself. "This trip to the Grand Line is also an opportunity—a chance to achieve undeniable merit. It'll shut up those who gossip behind my back."
The officials exchanged glances. After a moment, someone cautiously asked, "Then... who will take over your duties?"
"A man named Tony," Kuro replied casually. "He's an old subordinate of the Governor."
Two of the senior officials visibly stiffened. They had secretly hoped that someone from within the Bureau's upper ranks would be chosen to replace Kuro. The Governor's decision to bring in an outsider dashed those hopes.
Feigning indignation on Kuro's behalf, one official said in a tone of shared grievance, "Director, rest assured, you will always be our Director. When this Tony fellow arrives and finds everything difficult to manage, and when the Governor sees his poor performance, he'll surely miss you."
Though the words were carefully phrased, their meaning was clear to everyone in the room. The speaker was subtly encouraging resistance against Tony's leadership.
Kuro, however, merely chuckled indifferently. He knew he might not return from the Grand Line for a long time. Even if Tony failed and was removed by William, Kuro wouldn't be reinstated. The most likely outcome would be the promotion of someone familiar from within the Bureau. Kuro had no intention of playing the villain by openly opposing Tony—who knew if such comments might leak?
"You all know what kind of person the Governor is," Kuro said, casting a meaningful glance at the man who had spoken. "You're not fools, and neither is the Governor. Do you think he wouldn't see through your little schemes? If Tony struggles because of his own abilities, that's one thing. But if you deliberately sabotage him, none of you will come out unscathed. Negligence? Disobedience? Have you forgotten how the Governor deals with those who defy his orders?"
Kuro's words left the room in silence.
...
While William and his crew in the East Blue were making final preparations for their expedition, far away on the Sabaody Archipelago in the Grand Line, someone was also thinking about William's crew.
Captain Yosolin Heller had once been a trusted aide to Colonel Roy of the 16th Marine Branch in the East Blue.
Back in the East Blue, this young captain had been full of ambition. With Roy as his backer and mentor, Heller had quickly risen through the ranks, earning the rank of captain at a young age. In the East Blue, a place known as the weakest of the Four Seas, his rank and strength commanded respect, and few dared to underestimate him.
But after being transferred to the Marine Headquarters in the Grand Line, Heller realized that Roy had not been exaggerating in his warnings.
The value of a rank in the Headquarters was roughly equivalent to being three ranks higher in a branch. By that standard, Heller's promotion from branch captain to Headquarters captain was already a significant step up.
Yet in the two years since his transfer, his rank had remained stagnant.
Colonel Roy, who had been a law unto himself in the East Blue, was a minor figure in the Marine Headquarters. After Roy's death, Heller, as his former subordinate from the branch, became even less significant.
Moreover, Heller's strength, while notable in the East Blue, was unremarkable in the Headquarters, a place teeming with monsters. He began to understand the frustration Roy must have felt in his later years. Some individuals, born as geniuses of combat, were so gifted that others couldn't even muster the will to compete with them.
Of course, if Heller had been diligent, focusing on his duties and training, he might have made some progress over the past two years. Instead, he had spent much of his time filing complaints and petitions, which only alienated his superiors.
Heller was well aware of the tangled web of relationships between Roy, Nezumi, William, and Arcadio. When he first heard of Roy's death, he was devastated. But soon, he began to doubt the official account.
The official report claimed that Roy had been killed by the Cook Pirates. However, when Nezumi took over Roy's position, and Roy's other confidants from the 16th Branch mysteriously lost contact with him, Heller couldn't help but grow suspicious.
Roy had always been wary of Nezumi and the man then known as Stolt, now William, suspecting collusion between the two. Heller knew this all too well. He couldn't shake the suspicion that Nezumi and Stolt had conspired to assassinate Roy and frame another pirate crew for the crime. After all, Heller had seen Roy pull similar tricks before.
Roy had been a mentor and benefactor to Heller. Combined with his own frustrations, Heller repeatedly reported his suspicions, hoping to draw the Headquarters' attention to William's pirate crew and prompt an investigation in the East Blue—ideally leading to the Morgan Pirates being wiped out.
However, there was a problem: Roy's connections with William, Arcadio, and others were serious breaches of military protocol. As Roy's protégé, Heller was implicated in these actions. Roy's death had been officially framed as a noble sacrifice, earning him posthumous praise. If Heller exposed the truth, Roy's reputation would be ruined, and Heller himself would face severe consequences.
As a result, Heller's reports were often vague and contradictory, failing to capture his superiors' attention.
A major pirate in the East Blue? What a joke.
Even if Heller's claims were true, the Headquarters wouldn't care. The East Blue was famously the weakest of the Four Seas. A so-called "major pirate" there would be considered minor compared to the threats in the Grand Line.
The Headquarters' focus was on the Grand Line, where countless pirates and dangerous criminals demanded their full attention. They had no interest in investigating a vague report about a supposed "major pirate" in the backwater East Blue.
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