The thing is, the more I think about the navy, the more obvious it seems like they’re set to match up against the strawhats.
I think Greenbull + Fujitora vs Sanji + Zoro is a guaranteed matchup
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Fleet admiral + absolute justice vs pirate king + absolute freedom
Nah I agree that they are strawhat opponents, just not right away.
The theory I'm sort of running with is that when Oda talks about the "journey" ending, he specifically means Luffy's Journey to Laugh Tale, not the end of the series. Post Wano still leaves a lot of unfinished questions and very clear escalation that needs to occur before the final war. And in that case, I sincerely think we have:
- 2-3 additional arcs (Vegapunk, Elbaf, Lodestar, etc)
- Laugh Tale itself (the "end" to Luffy's journey, we learn mostly everything of the series mysteries by this point)
- Final War (a culmination of everything that remains)
Consider how it took post-Enies Lobby to Amazon Lily to involve Luffy in Ace's plot, even while we saw the seeds for that begin right after Enies Lobby. I think the same here. We've only just begun the idea of the final war, so I think with that some time needs to pass before we have the crew jump from one 400 chapter long major conflict (Kaido) to the biggest conflict in the series.
Basically it will take a few more arcs for the crew to become increasingly aware of the world threat the series is heading towards. It's also been increasingly more obvious that whoever "discovers" One Piece at the right time will be the one to save the world. Roger was too early because Shirahoshi wasn't born yet. Whitebeard essentially confirmed that whoever "finds" One Piece will be the one to take down the WG. This essentially implies one needs to happen (becoming PK) before the other (final war)
And I think that, once we get to this final war, the Admirals/Marines are simply the first line of defense. They will be the ones to go down first, but it will be a signficant first portion.