They had been meeting on this matter for weeks.
It had begun, in their earliest conversations, as a curiosity; a singularly categorized chakra signature spotted by unknown sensors on a frequency they had none for filing.
It had become, by Alabasta, a concern, and by the Skypiea event, a problem.
There were no windows in the room.
A single large dark wood table shone in its center.
One old map hung on its walls.
This was a very old map indeed, using navigational conventions of ages past.
It was kept in this room because this room had been built for the map without attracting any attention.
They were five very old men.
They had given up their names generations ago.
They sat in their chairs and referred to each other in terms of the offices they held in the institution.
These offices, however, did not make any sense in this room.
They were five voices.
They waited for Aokiji’s report.
One young attaché entered the room, placed the report on the table, and left.
The oldest of the five—a thin man with white hair and eyes of old soaked paper—reached for the report and began to read it out loud.
The reading took less than a couple of minutes.
The report was three pages long.
It was, in its physicality, an Admiral’s report after a confirmed encounter with a person of interest.
It carried the proper heading, margins, and stamps.
But it contained practically no information whatsoever.
Aokiji had noted that the encounter had taken place on Long Ring Long Land.
He had dated and timed the event.
He had noted that the subject in question was a male adult, that he had exhibited no combat behavior, that he had been traveling in the company of a confirmed crew on the official Straw Hat Pirate list, and that his chakra signature corresponded to other observations of the matter in question.
He noted that the encounter had been concluded with neither engagement nor any threat assessment.
That was all he had noted.
He provided no description of the conversation, no characterization of the intentions behind the encounter, no interpretation of the matter’s intentions or motivations.
No identification of the member of the crew carrying the Devil Fruit whose presence and whose behavior had been reported multiple times before.
The word ‘Robin’ did not appear anywhere in the document.
The oldest of the five placed the report back on the table.
“He met him.”
“And he gave three pages worth of report on having met him without saying anything else.” Get faster updates on g.com.
“Aokiji has been doing that for years.”
“He has, but not like this.”
A silence ensued.
The second oldest of the five—the man with a long gray beard and an unrelenting expression that hadn’t changed for twenty years—leaned forward.
“What does this tell us?”
“That the Admiral has decided not to serve as the conduit of information in this case.”
“Because this case has compromised him.”
“Or because the Admiral has made a moral decision that this matter isn’t supposed to be discussed in a report format.”
“Those are the same thing.”
“They aren’t.
The former means a man has been compromised.
The latter means a man has decided to act according to his moral standards.
We know Aokiji for twenty years.
It’s much more probable that the latter happened.”
Another long silence followed, as each one of them thought about how many decades they had worked next to this man who now, in three pages worth of report, had told them that he didn’t want to cooperate with their efforts anymore.
“What do we know that Aokiji hasn’t written in his report?”
The third eldest—one of those rare Elders without any facial hair, whose own chakra was noticeably drier than others’, reached for a smaller document.
He opened the folder and read from it out loud.
First, there was the story of the bar fight witnessed by the Mock Town informant.
Next, there was the report sent from Skypiean military intelligence, which had described the collapse of Enel’s regime in such a way that no matter how hard the Skypiean chief of military stations tried to understand it, he couldn’t figure out how exactly the entire stockpile of phenomena stored in Skypiea managed to get into the atmosphere without harming anyone living there.
Then, there was the report from Alabasta about the stopping of the central plaza bomb by means of divine intervention, although no one actually saw how it happened.
After that, three smaller reports—about the destruction of the World Government’s fortress, the sinking of the island of Santa Terra, and the explosion in Baratie.
Finally, there was the latest observation made by the patrol unit of Long Ring Long Land region, reporting the docking of the Straw Hats’ ship in the tail, as well as the appearance of the Admiral’s bicycle near the same island.
He put the report back on the table.
“He has worked against our goals in three different theaters of operation.
He has done so without ever seeking confrontation with our forces.
Moreover, he seems to have a policy of avoiding killing our people; there is a single confirmed casualty directly connected to him after a year of activity.”
“No confirmed deaths, no injuries inflicted by his personal action, although some Marines and Cipher Pol agents have been wounded indirectly through their participation in the conflicts where he has appeared.
So it looks like he avoids killing as a matter of principle.”
“It is highly unusual.”
“It is highly unusual.
In itself, this information is the key.” Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
The fourth eldest, a rather younger man who had been serving in the room for thirty years now, spoke for the first time.
“What are the dispositions of our Cipher Pol agent at Water Seven?”
“In place.
Lucci’s team has been infiltrating the Galley-La for five years now and stands ready to move upon Iceberg the moment the Pluton investigation warrants it.”
“The Pluton investigation has warranting for some time now.
We have been waiting for the right moment, and the addition of Nico Robin to the crew and its potential appearance at Water Seven has provided it.”
“You mean you want us to move Lucci?”
“I want us to move Lucci with the addition of a special brief to bring the girl alive without harming her.”
“Why?
For our records?”
“For leverage.
We haven’t been able to find a point where we can use this matter to our advantage, but we seem to have found one with this girl.”
“How do you plan to use her?”
“Lucci should take her, on the basis of the standing order for investigating Pluton, as well as a new one, to see how this matter would react to that action.”
The oldest man stayed silent for some time, performing a long mental calculation.
“The matter in question might destroy Enies Lobby.”
“He will.”
“And Enies Lobby has existed for eight centuries.”
“He might just destroy it.”
“He will.
Then we will be able to learn something about him that we don’t know.”
A silence followed again.
Finally, the oldest man nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Move Lucci.”
The fourth one bowed, picked up his folder, and left the room.
The rest of them sat silently in the room with the old map on the walls.
The map showed, using ancient conventions, a number of positions of the objects on the floor of the world that could no longer be found in any current chart.
The oldest man looked at the map for some time.
“He will come.”
“That’s to be expected.”
“He will come, and he will pass through the gate, and we will find out who he is.”
“Likely.”
The room stayed silent for a while longer.