The surveillance room fell silent in an instant.
The electric hiss of the Den Den Mushi screens and the distant howls of prisoners seemed to disappear.
Everyone was nailed in place by those words, and the atmosphere became unbearably heavy.
Magellan's face was deathly pale.
Beads of sweat rolled down from his forehead and dripped onto the floor with a soft patter.
His body trembled slightly.
Whether it was because the venom in his body was churning or because of the truth he was about to reveal, no one could tell.
Zaraki leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, his eyes calmly watching everything unfold.
He could smell the scent of poison mixed into Magellan's body, and he could also sense Sengoku's aura shifting from tightly restrained to violently furious.
The smile on Garp's face had long since vanished. His expression was dark.
Sengoku's face was livid as he spoke coldly.
"Magellan, is everything you said true?"
"The Five Elders arranged for Shiryu of the Rain to assassinate you, while also releasing the prisoners on Level Six, intending to destroy Impel Down and frame Zaraki for it."
"Unfortunately for them, they underestimated Zaraki. All of them were heavily injured, and your injuries were also healed by him?"
"Yes. If Zaraki had not acted, I would most likely be dead by now."
Magellan answered in a low voice.
After glancing at Zaraki, who was drinking as if none of this concerned him, he continued.
It was a vicious enough plan.
If it had succeeded, Magellan would have died, Impel Down would have fallen into chaos, and countless criminals would have poured out of the prison.
At that point, no matter what Zaraki had done, under the World Government's control of public opinion, he would have been turned from a Marine hero into the chief culprit.
The fury of the people and the pressure from within the Marines would have been enough to crush him completely.
A fine example of killing with a borrowed knife.
"Those... old bastards!"
Boom!
With a thunderous crash, Garp's huge fist, wrapped in pitch-black Haki, slammed hard into the Seastone control console.
A fist-shaped dent caved into the center of the sturdy console.
Cracks instantly spread across the surface, and every surveillance screen went dark amid a burst of electric sparks.
The entire room shook violently from that punch.
"I'm going to Mary Geoise right now!"
Garp's chest rose and fell violently.
His eyes were bloodshot, and the murderous aura honed through countless battlefields made even Akainu and Kizaru instinctively tense their bodies.
"I want to ask those five old bastards to their faces whether this is how they treat a Marine hero!"
"Garp! Stay right there!"
Sengoku barked and moved in a flash, blocking Garp's path.
His face looked equally awful.
"What can you do if you charge in now? You'll only make this bigger and play straight into their hands!"
"Then what do you expect me to do?!" Garp's spit nearly sprayed onto Sengoku's face. "Just stand here and watch my grandson get schemed against like this?!"
Just as the atmosphere grew tense to the extreme, a somewhat lazy voice sounded.
"Actually, I rather like that they did this."
Everyone's argument stopped abruptly, and all eyes turned toward the source of the voice.
Zaraki.
At some point, he had already straightened up.
There was not the slightest anger on his face from being schemed against. Instead, he wore a faint smile full of interest.
That smile made everyone present feel a chill in their hearts.
Magellan looked at him, his eyes full of confusion.
Sengoku and Garp were also stunned for a moment, unable to follow his thoughts.
"Zaraki, you..."
Zaraki raised one finger and lightly shook it.
The curve of his mouth widened a little, and a pure light flickered in his golden eyes, enough to make any observer feel cold all over.
"This way," he said softly, his voice not loud, yet clearly entering everyone's ears, "the next time some blind idiot comes at me, I'll have a reason to cut them apart, flesh, bones, and all... without holding back, won't I?"
The consequences, the identities, the excuses—those would all be handed to him by the people who had tried to kill him first.
If another blind idiot came swinging at his throat, Zaraki could finally answer with the kind of violence he preferred, clean and direct, without Sengoku shouting about restraint every other breath.
That was the kind of battle he sought.
Inside the surveillance room, it was so quiet one could hear a pin drop.
Magellan's cold sweat flowed even harder.
He suddenly felt that the Five Elders had plotted against this young man only because those gods seated above all had provoked a madman they could neither understand nor control.
Sengoku remained silent for a long time.
He looked deeply at Zaraki, his gaze incredibly complicated.
There was appreciation, a headache, and even more helplessness!
He slowly exhaled a turbid breath, as if expelling the anger and frustration in his chest along with it.
"I will personally make a trip to Mary Geoise and demand an explanation from them," Sengoku said in a deep voice, his authority as Fleet Admiral returning.
"The dignity of the Marines will not be trampled."
Zaraki had wasted too much time here already.
Compared with these irritating schemes, he would rather return to the sea and look for a satisfying fight.
Growing stronger was the only truth.
Sengoku watched his departing back. His mouth opened, but in the end, it only became a heavy sigh.
However, just as Zaraki's hand was about to touch the handle of the heavy iron door, the urgent, distorted ringing of a Den Den Mushi suddenly shrieked through the room without warning.
"Purupurupuru... purupurupuru..."
It was not an ordinary call, but an encrypted line used only for the highest-level emergencies.
A Marine Commander in charge of communications hurriedly answered.
He had only caught the opening burst of the transmission before the encryption locked completely, but that half sentence alone was enough to drain the blood from his face.
He suddenly raised his head, his voice trembling.
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku! CP0 has opened a highest-level emergency channel from the prison relay. The encryption cut us off almost immediately, but before it locked, we caught Black Three's first accusation. He claims the Impel Down mission failed because of Zaraki, and he is requesting direct contact with the Five Elders!"
Zaraki's motion of pushing the door paused slightly.
He turned his head, the corner of his mouth curving into a cold smile.
'He ran to complain this quickly?'
'How interesting.'
...
Meanwhile, in Dressrosa, inside the royal palace.
A secure visual Den Den Mushi projected the Hall of Authority from Mary Geoise onto the wall before Donquixote Doflamingo.
The image was dim, distorted slightly by the secure transmission.
Beyond the projected floor-to-ceiling windows was a rolling sea of clouds, as if the entire world lay beneath Mary Geoise's feet.
Doflamingo, wearing his pink feather coat and iconic flamingo sunglasses, leaned lazily against the sofa in his own palace, smiling at the Elder displayed before him as though they were chatting across an ordinary table.
"Fuffuffuffu... As expected of the Five Elders. When you make a move, it's never ordinary."
He let out his signature strange laugh, his tone fawning.
"A Marine rookie actually dared stir up trouble? Once you gentlemen move a finger, he won't even know how he died."
Within the projected image, the bald Five Elder known as Issō sat cross-legged on a cushion, prayer beads turning in his hand, his eyes half closed.
The Shodai Kitetsu rested quietly across his knees.
Hearing Doflamingo's flattery, Issō did not even lift his eyelids.
He merely let out a faint cold snort through his nose.
"It is time. The farce at Impel Down should be over by now."
He spoke lightly, his voice flat, as though he were stating a fact.
"The pieces have been placed. Now we need only close the net."
The smile on Doflamingo's face grew even brighter.
Doflamingo did not know every detail of the Five Elders' arrangement, and he was clever enough not to pretend otherwise.
Still, from the fragments deliberately leaked to him and the attitude Issō had shown through the secure line, he had pieced together the rough shape of the trap.
Magellan would suffer an "accident," Shiryu of the Rain would become the spark that threw Impel Down into chaos, and once the prison erupted, responsibility would be pushed onto Zaraki, the newly famous Marine monster!
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