A group of senior Marine officers had gathered inside Admiral Sengoku’s office.
The atmosphere was unusually relaxed.
Rather than an official strategy meeting, it looked more like a casual gathering between longtime colleagues.
Garp sat on one of the sofas with a cup of tea in hand.
After taking a noisy sip, he looked toward Sengoku.
“I heard you went after the Whitebeard Pirates again and failed.” Sengoku sat behind his desk and rolled his eyes.
“You’ve tried to capture Roger more than forty times.
I don’t recall you succeeding either.” “Why do those two sound proud of their failures?” Admiral Zephyr asked from another sofa, laughing.
The group chatted idly for a while before Sengoku turned toward Tsuru.
“Tsuru, did you find anything worthwhile during your trip to the North Blue?” The North Blue held a somewhat special place in the Marines’ current recruitment efforts.
Over the past several years, the region had produced a number of exceptional recruits.
Two of the young officers already being called part of the Marines’ “three monsters,” Sakazuki and Borsalino, had both come from the North Blue.
Tsuru herself had also been born there.
Because of that, many senior Marines had begun wondering whether the North Blue possessed an unusual concentration of talent.
Whenever an opportunity arose, someone would travel through the region in search of promising recruits.
“Nothing particularly valuable,” Tsuru answered with a shake of her head.
After a brief hesitation, however, she continued.
“There is one matter worth mentioning.
During the past two years, the Donquixote Family’s influence has grown considerably.” “Donquixote Doflamingo appears to be positioning himself as the leading figure of the North Blue underworld.” “Donquixote Doflamingo?” Zephyr frowned slightly.
“I thought they were merely a smuggling organization.” Smuggling was undoubtedly illegal.
But the world was rarely divided neatly between black and white.
Both the World Government and the Marines occasionally required unofficial channels to handle matters that could not be acknowledged publicly.
For that reason, Marine officers did not always treat smuggling organizations with the same hostility they reserved for pirates or violent insurgents.
Under ordinary circumstances, neither Doflamingo nor the Donquixote Family possessed enough strength or influence to be discussed inside an admiral’s office.
The men and women gathered there commanded forces numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
Their attention was normally reserved for figures such as Roger, Shiki, and Whitebeard—monsters whose slightest movements could shake the entire world.
Doflamingo, however, occupied a somewhat unusual position in their eyes.
It was not because he had once been a Celestial Dragon.
At his current level of influence, that background meant very little to the Marines’ senior leadership.
What mattered more was that he was the elder brother of Sengoku’s adopted son.
Several years earlier, while carrying out a mission in the North Blue, Sengoku had found and taken in a child.
That child was Donquixote Rosinante, another former Celestial Dragon.
He was also the younger brother of the Young Master who now led the North Blue’s largest smuggling organization.
“Before I left for the North Blue, Rosinante asked me to pay attention to his brother,” Tsuru explained.
“So I investigated Doflamingo more carefully than I otherwise would have.” “On the surface, the Donquixote Family still lacks the strength to demand serious attention.” She narrowed her eyes.
“But when I examined the way the organization operates, I could see Doflamingo’s ambition quite clearly.” Doflamingo and Rosinante had not seen each other in years.
By the time the transmigrated Doflamingo awakened in Mary Geoise, Rosinante was already gone.
When Doflamingo eventually returned to the North Blue, his younger brother had disappeared completely.
Most likely, Rosinante had been horrified by Homing’s murder and fled.
Sometime afterward, he encountered Sengoku and was taken in by him.
Rosinante was now a member of the Marines.
As the adopted son of an admiral, he could have enjoyed a privileged and comfortable career.
But Rosinante was kind—perhaps excessively so.
He never advertised his relationship with Sengoku and refused to exploit it for special treatment.
Aside from a few officers close to Sengoku, very few people at Marine Headquarters knew who Rosinante truly was.
He intended to rise through the Marines one step at a time through his own ability.
Unfortunately, compared with his elder brother, Rosinante’s talents appeared rather ordinary.
He had not been born with Conqueror’s Haki, nor was he some extraordinary combat prodigy.
For now, he had only recently joined the intelligence division as an analyst.
Tsuru was one of the senior officers overseeing Marine intelligence.
Since she knew Rosinante’s background, she had naturally taken some care of him.
“Ambition?” Sengoku repeated quietly.
“What did you see?” “The first thing is that Doflamingo and Rosinante could hardly be more different,” Tsuru replied.
“They are like opposite sides of the same mirror.” “Rosinante is too kind and naïve.” “Doflamingo is far too cruel and corrupted.” No one in the room found that difficult to believe.
Most of them knew little about Doflamingo personally, but they all knew that he had decapitated his father at the age of ten.
No one expected such a child to grow into a decent man.
“He has deliberately cultivated his reputation in the North Blue,” Tsuru continued.
“Doflamingo wants people to view him as merciless, unpredictable, and terrifying.” “To achieve that, he has carried out acts of extreme brutality.” She raised one finger.
“When he was fourteen, an uneven road caused him to stumble while walking through a town.” “The Donquixote Family later destroyed the entire settlement.” “More than seven hundred people were killed or injured.” She raised a second finger.
“Last year, Rosd, once the largest smuggler in the North Blue, refused to formally merge his organization into the Donquixote Family.” “He had worked with Doflamingo for five years.” “Doflamingo responded by slaughtering all seventy-six members of Rosd’s household in a single night.” These were among the stories Tsuru had uncovered during her investigation.
“Cruelty and heartlessness are not merely traits he possesses,” she said.
“They are an image he has deliberately created.” “That suggests he intends to sink even deeper into the underworld.” “The Family’s development supports that conclusion.” “In addition to smuggling, it is already involved in slave trafficking and the trade of prohibited goods.” “It is also attempting to enter the arms business.” “As Doflamingo grows older and stronger, the Donquixote Family will no longer be limited to ordinary smuggling.” Tsuru paused before adding one final point.
“The organization has also established a structured promotion system.” “They are searching throughout the North Blue for talented children, bringing them into the Family at a young age, and training them as future members of its core forces.” “All of this proves that Doflamingo has no intention of remaining a regional smuggler.” “He will continue advancing along a path of crime and violence.” “If circumstances change in the future, it is entirely possible that he will become an enemy of the Marines.” At that moment, Sengoku spoke.
“Tsuru, is it possible that…” He stopped himself.
Something softened in his eyes, and he shook his head.
“Never mind.” Garp, Zephyr, and Tsuru had known him for many years.
They immediately understood what he had almost suggested.
Darkness would always exist.
The world could not eliminate it completely.
Light and darkness opposed one another, yet neither could ever fully destroy the other.
For a brief moment, Sengoku had wondered whether the Marines should stop allowing the North Blue underworld to grow without restraint.
Perhaps it would be better to place a chain around its neck.
And perhaps Donquixote Doflamingo could become that chain.
A controlled ruler of the underworld was easier to manage than countless independent criminal factions.
But then Sengoku remembered Rosinante.
Using the boy’s elder brother in such a way felt deeply wrong.
So he allowed the thought to die without giving it voice.