Chapter 493: Gion's Decision
Brett dialed Zephyr's number.
He didn't know exactly what this woman had been through, but the conclusion that she had genuinely turned against the Government seemed solid enough. Or perhaps more precisely, that the Government had turned against her.
He was certain of it for two reasons: he had been reading her thoughts since the moment she arrived, and several days of quiet observation had produced the same picture.
In truth, Brett had known she was on Fish-Man Island from the moment she set foot there.
The Fish-Man Island Logistics Company was his creation. A team coming back with an unfamiliar Fish-Man in tow was exactly the kind of thing they were meant to report immediately, and they had. The information had reached Arlong quickly, and from there to Brett. Arlong had taken one look at the details and known who she was before any real comparison was needed.
Arlong's instinct had been to move immediately. Capture her before she had a chance to cause trouble. A former Admiral candidate from Navy Headquarters, transformed into a Fish-Man, with the full capabilities that implied. On all of Fish-Man Island, only Brett could have apprehended her cleanly. Even Jinbei couldn't have called it a certainty.
But Brett had held back. He'd spoken at length with the logistics team that had brought her back, and by the end of that conversation he had reached a conclusion.
This woman was probably not going to do anything rash.
Events had borne that out. For the duration of her stay, Momousagi had done nothing that could be characterized as anything other than keeping to herself. Walking around. Looking at things. Taking casual labor to get by.
He had continued watching until today, when the timing felt right, and sent someone to bring her to him.
But as he had said to her himself, the only person with genuine authority over what came next was Zephyr. If Zephyr said there was no room for her, Brett would act on that judgment without hesitation.
When the Den Den Mushi began to ring, Brett said nothing, but he heard very clearly the anxiety moving through the woman beside him.
The call connected quickly.
"Brett." Zephyr's voice was steady and deep as always, carrying the particular quality of calm that came from having seen too many things to be easily shaken. "Gion is with you right now?"
"Do you want to talk to her?"
"Yes."
Brett passed the Den Den Mushi to Momousagi.
The former Vice Admiral, a woman who had sailed through more storms than most people encountered in a lifetime, hesitated. Then she drew in a breath and took it.
"Zephyr-sensei. Brett told me what happened to your forces." She paused. "I'm sorry."
"An apology won't bring anyone back, Gion. And given what you knew at the time, you were doing what you believed was right." Zephyr's voice didn't change. "What I want to understand right now is only one thing. What happened to you? What brought you here?"
"What happened to me." Momousagi was quiet for a moment. Then she let out a slow breath. "Doberman is dead, Zephyr-sensei."
"Doberman." A pause. "Tell me."
He had been proud of that man once.
"Like me, he underwent experimentation under Doctor Vegapunk. He was given a Fish-Man form." Momousagi's voice remained controlled. "The difference is that he wasn't captured during the raid on Fish-Man Island. He ended up at the Science Division as one of Caesar's test subjects."
Brett gave a small nod to himself. Those were the artificial Fish-Men who had slipped through during that operation. He remembered them.
"After Vegapunk was taken by Brett, the Government didn't give up on the idea of building a deep-sea fighting force." Momousagi exhaled slowly. "That task was handed to Caesar Clown."
Caesar.
Brett's expression shifted slightly.
That man was capable enough at certain things, he supposed. Large-scale human growth experiments with Charlotte family funding, producing nothing of substance. Artificial Devil Fruits with roughly a one-in-ten success rate and a great many dangerous failures. The World Government was truly scraping the bottom of their options if Caesar was their answer.
"Caesar had Doberman and the Fish-Man Marines under his command sent to assist with his experiments. I was called in later." Momousagi's fists had closed. "It was only when I arrived that I understood what his experiments actually involved."
"He was running something monstrous. Not content to simply transform people into Fish-Men. He wanted to go further. Awaken the dormant power inside Fish-Man blood. Prove he had surpassed Vegapunk."
Brett's expression had settled into something flat.
That was unpleasantly familiar. No wonder the research had been described as moving quickly.
"Everyone else was killed in the process. Doberman was the only one who survived, and only because he was intelligent enough to fake the loss of his mind." Momousagi's voice cracked once at the edge of the word 'killed', then steadied itself. There was moisture in her eyes that she wasn't going to let fall. "When I was brought in, Doberman seized the moment to tell me the truth. And then he died covering my escape."
"So."
Brett nodded slowly. "You know what the experiment was. That's why the Government branded you a traitor."
"Yes." She said it with complete steadiness. "I was naive before. The Government cannot represent this world's justice. An organization that can do that to its own most loyal soldiers, without hesitation, without consequence, does not deserve that name."
How could she have remained loyal to something like that?
Zephyr said nothing.
"She's telling the truth, Zephyr-sensei." Brett inserted this quietly.
Momousagi looked at him sideways with something between surprise and suspicion.
How was he that certain?
Brett offered her a slight smile in response.
"..."
Her eyes went wide.
He could actually read minds. That was real.
"Is that right." A long exhale from Zephyr. "So the World Government has finally managed to put you on their opposite side as well."
He sounded tired, not triumphant.
"Then what are you planning to do from here, Gion?"
"Since you know what happened before, I'll say this plainly. There may not be room for you here."
The dead from that day were too many.
Zephyr had said the words. He had told her she had been doing what she believed was right. But how could he not carry the grief and the fury for every one of the people who had died because of what she had done?
"As it happens, Zephyr-sensei, I have no intention of joining you." Momousagi's answer was direct. "What I want is to expose the truth, and to help the Navy break free of the Government's control."
A pause.
"An extraordinary coincidence," Brett said to himself, and meant it.