The next several days settled into a steady rhythm.
Soren arrived at Tsuru's office at 09:00, received the next set of documents, and spent the majority of the day cross-checking allocation tables against actual expenditure reports. The work was repetitive. He did not mind it at all. After all, it was the same in Sema.
By the fourth day the picture was complete enough.
Almost every flexible operational budget could be slowed or redirected from above. Requests that increased a branch's ability to act without direct oversight faced longer approval times. Funds that reinforced central control moved faster. The Marines had reach, manpower, and legal authority, but the fuel for all three still flowed through World Government channels.
That evening Soren sat at the desk in his quarters with the latest summaries closed and the diary open.
[I've finished the deeper review of the funding structure. The conclusion is simple. The Marines do not have financial independence. I knew it to some extent but this is really bad.]
[Every major line item can be tightened from above whenever the current balance needs protecting. That is not a flaw in the system. That is the system. Those five bastards designed it this way. After all, they need a struggling marine instead of a well oiled machine.]
[Sengoku has no choice either. He simply doesn't know the situation of the World Government. Imu doesn't care about how the marines are run at all. As for the God's Knights, as long as the marines do not directly threaten the Celestial Dragons, Garling will not make a move either. The only ones tightening this leash are those five bastards. If Sengoku threatens them a little and acts a bit more domineering, those geezers have no choice but to compromise. But alas.....]
[Even so, It's not like the marines have no options. A few practical directions present themselves.]
[Since the World Government directly pays the bounty, Sengoku can disguise some Vice admirals with non devil fruits as bounty hunters and cash in some higher bounty pirates. In the New World, pirates with a 500 million+ bounty are crawling anyway.]
[If they wanna take it even further, they can just rob the Heavenly tribute and frame some pirates for the job. Later make it look like they chased the culprit and kill some pirates. Then they can just say they found the pirates but the tribute is nowhere to be found.]
[ The most important long-term, independent plan has to be a shipbuilding facility. Water 7 currently holds a near monopoly on high-grade Marine construction. That is a strategic vulnerability. A Marine-controlled yard capable of producing and repairing proper warships would reduce the ability of anyone outside the organization to throttle its fleet.]
[Well, I can't tell Tsuru to rob the Heavenly Tribute on the second day, can I? I'll tell her about the ship building aspect. Let the higher ups decide. There is no need for me to worry about this.]
Soren closed the diary, washed, and went to bed. The fortress sounds continued outside the window. He had already stopped noticing most of them.
The following morning he delivered the latest cross-check results to Tsuru without additional comment. She reviewed the flagged items, asked three precise questions, and dismissed him. No discussion of structure. No invitation to expand.
He returned to the work.
That night Gion opened her copy of the diary after finishing her own reports. She read the new entry carefully. When she reached the three proposals her eyes stopped for a moment on the line about Heavenly Tribute routes. She read it again, then continued to the end.
A short breath left her.
"This guy," she said quietly to the empty office. "He really treats the World Government with such contempt huh."
She closed the book and locked it away.
Bogard read the same entry in silence. He spent the longest time on the shipbuilding paragraph. Independent capacity meant reduced leverage from above. He understood the value and the danger equally. When he finished he put the diary back in the drawer and sat without moving for several minutes, filing the ideas alongside everything else he now knew about Ashen D. Soren.
In the Fleet Admiral's office Sengoku read the entry twice. The funding diagnosis was consistent with what Soren had already shown. The proposals were another matter. A bounty unit with real autonomy. Pressure on Tribute routes. A Marine-owned shipyard.
Sengoku set the diary down and stared at the far wall.
If Sengoku threatens them a little and acts a bit more domineering, those geezers have no choice but to compromise.
Sengoku's hand stopped on the page. He read the sentence again. A low, humorless breath left him.
"Be stern and push back, is it," he muttered.
Sengoku locked the book away and remained at his desk long after the lamp should have been extinguished.
[A/N: Thank you to TransmigratedDemon and IgnitedReader for pointing out the spelling mistakes. I've fixed it :) ]