Chapter 107: Marineford 97

Bill continued to speak to his parents as they walked up the massive citadel corridors.

The entire structure was one large fortress and during this short walk he had passed a dozen kill zones, or what were easily defended positions that would allow defenders a chance to attack and fall back without too much risk.

Of course, everything was beautiful. As the main center of power for the World Government, the Marineford Citadel was intended to be oppressive both in its brutal design and its cunning magnificence.

As such, every massive wall was covered in vivid frescoes that told stories about the Marines and the origins of the World Government. Even the vibrant tiles on the floor weaved themselves into the themes being portrayed on the walls.

Interestingly, Aramaki never asked Bill about what happened between he and the Vice Admiral, and only inquired about the suitcase that Bill had brought along.

“Well, Sir.” Bill started: “The paperwork I brought was the personnel transfer documents that Onigumo signed, I paid him a lot of Beli and I didn’t want him to say that I forced him to make the transfers. I think these papers will be more than enough to show that.”

Out of everything that could happen, Bill was only concerned about the fact that Onigumo had signed off on 82 Marines transferring over to the Science Division.

This had been the result of Bill being somewhat underhanded, so even though he had paid 50m Beli with Onigumo claiming that he didn’t care about those Marines who left his ship, there was a chance that the Vice Admiral could lie now.

To his pleasure, both of his parents were nonchalant about the issue, and Bill thought if that was the case then all of this was a formality.

It wasn’t too long after that when Aramaki led them to a large door. It wasn’t giant-sized, but Bill figured a twenty-foot-tall person could walk through it without crouching over.

Without waiting for any introductions, Aramaki pushed open the door and walked inside.

Following after his dad, the first thing Bill noticed was the assortment of people.

He didn’t recognize everyone but there was Fleet Admiral Sengoku sitting behind a big desk looking over some papers. In front of the desk were two large sofas that were slanted facing the towards it.

Turning his head, Bill found Admiral Akainu standing beside Onigumo some distance away. They were looking at him and his parents but were not speaking.

Besides them there were another four individuals, the first was a thin but tall black-haired man whose curly hair bushed out at the bottom. He wore an blue long sleeve shirt under his Admirals Coat of Justice, but besides that, Bill didn’t know who he was.

That Admiral stood talking to someone who Bill did recognize, it was the Marine Hero and grandpa to Straw Hat Luffy, Vice Admiral Monkey Garp.

The final two people in the room seemed to be around his age, there was a good looking pink haired guy standing beside a long-haired blond man with a sword attached to his hip.

Interestingly, Bill thought, they both wore Marine Recruit uniforms.

Seeing Aramaki break off and head towards Sengoku, Bill followed his mom, and she went towards Admiral Akainu and Onigumo.

The two men stood in silence as she crossed the distance between them. Akainu held his arms crossed while Onigumo had his hands in his pockets.

Looking first at Onigumo, and then up to Admiral Akainu, Dina spoke like an Amazonian: “I’ll get to the heart of the matter.” Then turning her head back to Onigumo, she finished by saying: “Bad call.”

Bill knew his mother, and figured her words meant that Akainu was backing the wrong person, and while he agreed with that, he was on edge looking at the red-suited Admiral.

For Akainu’s part, he didn’t lash out but instead looked down at the woman and with his arms still crossed said: “It’s our duty to uphold Justice. These charges are serious.” Then with a mean smile he leaned slightly forward: “You will do good to remember where you are, woman.”

At this point, fighting an Admiral was not something Bill would look forward to doing, and thankfully, just as he was about to try and lead his mother away from Akainu a laugh was heard and there was footsteps coming in their direction.

“Bwahaha!”

Turning his head, Bill saw Garp and the other tall gentleman walking in his direction and nudging his mom, stood to the side a little bit.

He didn’t know the power dynamics of the individuals all present, but as Garp began to verbally lay into Akainu, he saw the Admiral just take it and neither agree or disagree.

Standing in the small group, Bill thought it had been a long time since he was surrounded by people of similar height, he had gotten accustomed to towering over all of his friends.

They stood there for several minutes before Garp turned his attention to Bill.

“You’re Aramaki’s boy?” he asked.

When Bill answered positively, he noticed that Garp gave him a probing look before sighing and claiming that he had wished to bring his own family into the Marines, but that they were nothing but rascals.

Then it struck him the duality between Garp and Aramaki. One Marine wanted to bring his family into the navy and the other didn’t. Bill knew what it was like to wish a future on your kids that they didn’t want, and so the realization made him inexplicably feel closer to the two senior Marines.

After speaking with Garp, Bill turned his attention to the other man and learned it was Admiral Aokiji. Like with Akainu, he knew the name but not much else.

The lean Admiral seemed nice enough, but Bill somehow got the notion that he was lazy and due to that laziness there wasn’t much to say after they greeted each other.

Despite living an entire life on Earth, unbeknownst to Bill, the others in the room were watching his every action.

Whether it was because his mind was formed in a classless society, whether it was because this was a non-formal gathering before any procedures, or whether it was because he did not feel overwhelmed by the immense power in the room.

Whatever the case was, everyone besides his parents thought that it was highly unusual for a twenty-year-old Captain to act so casual around some of the most powerful men in the world. This notion was even more pronounced due to the fact that Bill did not hold himself as particularly strong.

Strength was almost always the result of ego, and in this world where the scales of power were far beyond that of any normal human, that ego would typically show itself with enough observation.

This did not mean that every powerful person was the same, or that they inevitably lorded over others, but the great majority of powerful people had some tick. It was that tick that made them powerful in the first place.

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But Bill didn’t show that, at least in this social setting his personality had been much the same as on Earth.

After nearly half an hour of talking back and forth, Sengoku cleared his throat and said: “Alright! Ox! Then let’s just get this over with!”

Then adjusting his seagull hat, Sengoku said authoritatively: “Captain William Ox come take a seat in front of me.”

Bill was taken off guard by the Fleet Admiral, he knew that he wasn’t going to have a standard trial but thought for sure it wouldn’t be some ad hoc  interview.

‘Hmm...’ he thought curiously but still obeyed and walked towards one of the couches.

Looking at the mountain of papers on Sengoku’s desk, Bill read the name “Zephyr” poking out from a folder. The rest of the document was covered, but he wondered if this Court Martial was being pushed through simply due to Sengoku being preoccupied with other matters.

Flipping over a new folder, Sengoku pulled out few papers and read them out loud.

Bill immediately recognized this to be a statement made by both Onigumo and Commodore Kibin. The report was more or less accurate, but it undersold Onigumo’s hostility while exaggerating Bill’s response.

To make matters worse, the troop transfer wasn’t even mentioned, and if Sengoku didn’t allow for anything besides paperwork to be reviewed, Bill had nothing.

After the Fleet Admiral was finished, he looked past Bill and asked: “Do you stand by all of this, Vice Admiral?” to which Onigumo naturally replied ‘Yes.’ And then it was Bill’s turn.

Sengoku: “Now, Captain Ox, you’ve brought documents of your own. Go ahead and hand them over.”

Shrugging his shoulders, he reached into his suitcase and pulled out a folder with nearly a hundred documents, and said: “I didn’t realize it was necessary to write a full report, Fleet Admiral.” As he handed them over the desk.

Hearing a “Bwahaha” laugh coming from behind him, Bill realized he had made a mistake and couldn’t blame anyone besides himself.

He wondered why his parents hadn’t warned him, or perhaps all of this was just spur of the moment. Bill didn’t know what the Fleet Admiral had going on, but maybe a dispute between two officers that didn’t lead to death wasn’t very important so long as certain lines weren’t crossed.

Looking over the papers, Sengoku looked up and asked what they were supposed to mean, and Bill answered that his initial concern was the personnel transfers.

Sengoku: “Vice Admiral, your report didn’t mention these transfers. Were they a part of the delivery from the Science Division?”

Hearing a voice behind him, Onigumo said stoically: “He paid me 50m Beli for 82 low ranking members off my ship. I didn’t ask him why, and he didn’t come out and say so, but I suspect that he was attempting to bribe me.”

Not making any protest to this claim, Bill stayed looking forward and when Sengoku asked was that true, he simply said ‘It is not.’

“Why did you attack the Vice Admiral? Just tell me what happened in your own words.” Sengoku said somewhat irritated.

Nodding his head ‘ok’ it was now for the first time that Bill recounted the story to anyone, and while he knew this would only be considered “his side” of things, with his memory he was crystal clear on the events that day.

He started off telling the assembly that the Vice Admiral had a mission to deliver to him a nuclear reactor to his laboratory and when his ship arrived it had taken some time for the Marines in his Department to find him.

“I was working underground.” Explained Bill: “The engineers and I had drawn the schematics for my laboratory, where the power generator would be installed and that sort of thing, but the entire area was a massive natural cave system and so I had to mine a lot of the stone out to expand caverns and make better conjoining walkways.”

After that he explained the only way into his laboratory was an entrance as far away from the harbor as it was possible to get on the island.

“By the time I made it to the Vice Admirals ship he must have been waiting for several hours. You see, I had been covered in stone dust and needed to change out of my overalls.

Anyways, when I got to the ship, the Vice Admiral was very aggressive.”

Sengoku: “So he threatened you?”

Bill: “No, not then. At first he was just very brisk and at one point asked whether or not I was accusing him of stealing parts of the equipment. I had told him no, but- “I offered to help him unload the ship.” Onigumo cut in but was quickly told to be quiet by Sentomaru.

Bill: “Yes, the Vice Admiral did offer to help unload, but I was convinced that he was going to try and damage the machinery that I escorted him to his office.”

After that, Bill spoke about unloading the ship and finally that he was attacked by Onigumo who even used Shave and hit him in the chest with a Finger Gun.

Sengoku “Hold.”

Hearing him say this, Bill came to an immediate stop and Sengoku continued: “You claim he attacked you first, why would he do that?”

This point was never in question for Bill. He knew exactly why the Vice Admiral had acted the way he did.

So, he answered as a matter of fact: “Before, when I told you that the Vice Admiral was going to damage the machinery, that was because he was using his Devil Fruit, when I saw him doing this secretly, I naturally nullified him and sent him to his office.

So, you can naturally understand. He was upset that I nullified his and manhandled him. I don’t think he ever expected that I would defeat him with one punch and imprison him, but that’s what happened.

Afterwards, I contacted Headquarters and was told by Commodore Kibin to free him, and I guess that’s when he set the date for this trial.”

Considering this, Sengoku peered at Aramaki for some reason, then leaned back and said: “Show me how you nullified him.”

And just like that, the room was filled with golden light.