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Caught in his embrace, crimson spread across Jessica's face. She struggled, but in his iron grip, she was powerless.
"Let me go, you bastard!" she squirmed—a perfect echo of the day he had first abducted her.
"Hahahaha! Not this time, Jessica," Arthur laughed with rare, genuine joy.
After a long moment, the laughter subsided.
"I am sorry," he said quietly.
"Sorry for what? You are the captain of the Thunder God Pirates, the strongest man in the New World. You probably forgot all about a small-fry like me years ago." She turned her face away stubbornly, her eyes red, refusing to meet his gaze.
"So you have been paying attention to me. I have never apologized to anyone before. You should feel honored." His playful grin returned.
After seven long years, his first crewmate—his chef—Jessica was finally back at his side.
He guided the hovering steel boat out through the Gates of Justice. Shiryu, understanding the moment, moved to the stern, lit a cigarillo, and watched the world drift by.
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On the plaza below, the slaughter continued. More and more Marines were being cut down by the rampaging Kaido.
Akainu and his hardliners refused to give an inch.
Finally, seeing the catastrophic losses mount, Sengoku and the other top brass entered the fray, their combined might focused on a single goal: subduing the Beast.
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"So Jessica made her choice in the end," Aurora murmured, watching the three figures disappear into the sky. Confusion clouded her features.
She envied Jessica's willfulness, her courage. To so decisively cast aside her entire life and follow the man she loved.
"So that is why the little brat has been so quiet these past few days," Vice Admiral Tsuru sighed, frowning.
The price for betraying the Navy was absolute. The next time they met, there would be no mercy.
It was a matter of principle. The World Government was justice. The pirates were evil. When the two met, there could be only one outcome.
"I have to know for sure!"
Vice Admiral Gion, frustration etched across her features at her failure to stop Jessica, ignored Tsuru's words of caution and shot into the sky, racing after them through the Gates of Justice.
She had been the one to personally train Jessica when she had first joined the Marines seven years ago.
Her elegant, pink-clad figure cut a striking line across the sky, drawing the attention of every Marine below.
"Eh? Could it be that she heard I was about to confess to her for the thirtieth time, and she is running away out of shyness?" Vice Admiral Chaton muttered around the toothpick clenched between his teeth.
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Gion flew through the air, determination hardening her features. A single, alluring beauty mark graced the corner of her lips. Her Justice coat billowed behind her, revealing the terrifying spider tattoo that covered her long, slender legs.
In her hand, she held her famous blade—the Konpira.
She was an Admiral candidate. If not for her lack of military honors, she would have long since become one of the few female Admirals in the Navy's eight-hundred-year history.
"THUNDER EMPEROR! STOP RIGHT THERE! LEAVE JESSICA BEHIND!"
Her voice rang out sharp and furious. She pushed her speed to its absolute limit and, in a matter of seconds, caught up to the steel boat.
"Come to die, Vice Admiral?" Arthur asked, raising an eyebrow. He was surprised that any Marine would dare face him alone on the open sea. He did not discriminate when it came to killing.
"Jessica cannot go with a pirate! You will ruin her!"
Gion descended from the sky, her leg drawn back, her pink high-heeled shoe and the length of her leg up to her knee coated in shimmering black Armament Haki. She brought it down like a falling axe.
For a woman, for one of the few legendary female warriors on the seas, her fighting style was brutally direct.
She attacked without warning.
"BANG!"
Arthur's hand, wreathed in a faint purple corona, shot up to meet the blow.
The impact sent a shockwave rippling through the air, the very sea around the steel boat seeming to sink several meters.
'An Admiral candidate,' Arthur thought, feeling the immense power behind the kick. 'Her strength surpasses that of most men. She is likely on par with Shiryu.'
One should never underestimate any woman who has made a name for herself on these seas.
Gion gritted her teeth, pouring all her strength into the blow. Her free hand moved toward the hilt of her blade.
At the stern of the boat, Shiryu flicked his cigarillo into the sea and licked his lips, a strange, excited gleam in his eyes. When two master swordsmen met, their blades were the only answer.
"Captain. Leave her to me," he said, his voice a low growl. "I will honor her as an opponent and kill her with the utmost respect."
Chivalry was not in his vocabulary. In his dictionary, there were only two entries: the living and the dead.
"Arthur... please, let her go," Jessica pleaded, pulling at the corner of his coat.
"When I first returned to the Navy, so many of them looked down on me, called me a traitor for having been on a pirate ship. But she was the only one who did not. She helped me."
"Jessica, do not beg a pirate for anything!" Gion snarled, her eyes still locked on Arthur, searching for any opening. "Just tell me you were taken against your will!"
"And even if she were," Arthur sneered, "do you really think you alone could do anything about it?"
Yet he listened to Jessica's words and released his grip.
"A person has to take responsibility for their choices," Jessica said, guilt filling her features, yet her voice remained firm.
"And I have made my choice. A life of freedom... it suits me better than a life in the Navy."
"You..." Gion stood frozen, as if struck by lightning. She remained there, motionless, until the steel boat had disappeared into the distance.
'Pirates have always outnumbered Marines,' she thought, confusion washing over her. 'Is freedom really that important? To be willing to pay such a heavy price for it. To be free and willful is the way of a pirate. To bear responsibility and give up one's freedom... that is the way of a Marine.'
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