Chapter 480: Caesar Unchained
The world was already in full uproar.
In what felt like the same moment, the World Economy News Paper and several other major publications delivered the same thunderclap to every sea simultaneously. Two former Navy Admirals, Akainu and Aokiji, previously captured by the NEO Navy, once counted among the World Government's highest fighting strength, had now formally and irrevocably defected to serve under Black Arm Zephyr.
The news was the same everywhere. But the story each paper told about it couldn't have been more different.
The publications aligned with the World Government ran the Navy Headquarters' official statement in full. It condemned both men's betrayal in the strongest possible terms, framing their defection as a descent into villainy, a willful abandonment of Justice for the embrace of darkness. In an effort to cement their moral ruin, the Government even invoked Ohara, publicly condemning Akainu's bombardment of the refugee ship for the first time, a piece of the historical record that until now had been quietly buried.
The goal was unmistakable: strip both men of whatever respect they'd accumulated and render them unambiguously evil in the public eye.
The World Economy News Paper, for its part, also brought up Ohara.
Where the Government's outlets were trying to bury Akainu and Aokiji, the World Economy News Paper was doing the opposite. It laid out the full account of what had actually happened on that island, plainly and without embellishment. It was, after all, the pivotal event in Aokiji's own change of heart, and the readers deserved to understand why.
Until now, next to no one outside of a handful of survivors and the people in power had ever heard the real story of Ohara. Reading it directly, without a political frame around it, produced something that moral grandstanding never could. The question of whether it was right or wrong to erase an entire island simply for pursuing history was not a complicated one. People could work that out for themselves.
Beyond Ohara, Akainu and Aokiji had also supplied no small amount of damaging information about the World Government's conduct over the years. There was more than enough material to work with. Just the acts of the Celestial Dragons in recent memory alone could have filled volumes.
The two competing narratives collided across the world and sent waves in every direction. The World Economy News Paper had wider reach and stronger evidence on its side. The World Government had centuries of institutional authority behind it. People caught in the middle didn't know what to believe.
But one thing they agreed on without much debate.
Whatever came next was going to change everything.
At a certain location in the world, inside the Revolutionary Army's headquarters, Dragon was looking at the woman in front of him with something close to concern.
"You're sure you're alright with this, Robin?"
The news of two Admiral-level fighters joining the alliance was, strategically, very good. There was no getting around how significant a gain that was.
But those two particular men had been the ones to carry out the Buster Call on Ohara. They had stood on opposite sides of a divide from Nico Robin that was written in the deaths of everyone she had ever known.
The woman with the long dark hair gave a small, quiet shake of her head.
"Destroying Ohara was the World Government's decision. The Five Elders' decision. The two of them were only the hands that carried it out."
Even if they hadn't come, other hands would have. The order would have been executed regardless.
And strictly speaking, Aokiji had been the one to let her live.
The harder thing to accept was Akainu's bombardment of the refugee ship. That was harder to set aside.
"..."
Robin wrapped her right hand around her left arm, just above the elbow, holding it there. Her gaze dropped for a moment.
"If they can contribute to something greater than what was lost," she said at last, "then perhaps that can be their atonement."
Dragon went quiet.
There was nothing he could say to that. Whatever words he might offer felt like an intrusion against the particular stillness of someone who had already done the hard work of arriving somewhere, and arrived alone.
"We will bring down the World Government," he said finally, with the absolute conviction of a man who had staked his entire existence on it. "And we will change this world completely."
Robin gave a small nod.
Fish-Man Island.
"Trading words in the press accomplishes nothing." Brett set both newspapers down on the table. "In the end, it comes down to force."
"So now we wait and see when the Doctor and his team can finish Pluton," Tesoro said. He leaned back in his seat, an odd thoughtfulness on his face. "The losses this time were enormous. But it might not be entirely without value."
He looked at Brett. "We got a firsthand look at what that thing can actually do."
Brett nodded. "Its raw power is in a class of its own. But it's not without weaknesses." A pause. "Its speed, for one, can't keep up with me at full output. It's not unbeatable."
"Still," Jinbei said, his brow creasing slightly, "the Navy's begun recruiting again. Last time they managed to pull two Admiral-level fighters out of obscurity. This time, who knows what they might find."
"There are hidden monsters out there in the world, but not that many." Brett shook his head. "Strength at that level comes from fighting. You can't reach the top of this sea by hiding in a village. Even Fujitora and Ryokugyu weren't exactly unknowns before they were brought in."
He didn't believe the world contained an endless supply of people like that.
"Let them recruit. What we need to do right now is wait."
Wait for Pluton to be completed. Wait for the moment of the final decisive battle to arrive.
Navy Science Division, New Research Base.
"Caesar! What the hell do you think you're doing!"
The man strapped to the operating table was Vice Admiral Doberman, and he was furious in the particular way of someone who genuinely could not understand what was happening to him. The muscle relaxants they'd injected had sapped the strength from his limbs. The steel restraints had done the rest. He was completely immobilized.
He had been told he was here to participate in research. To cooperate with experiments. That was the arrangement.
This was not what he had agreed to.
"Relax, relax, Vice Admiral Doberman," Caesar said, drifting above the operating table in his perpetual haze of gas, grinning with the particular glee of a man for whom other people's distress was simply confirmation that something interesting was about to happen. "This one is going to work. I can feel it."
"You're going to be my greatest masterpiece."
"What are you planning to do to me?" Doberman's voice had risen higher than he intended.
"What Vegapunk did," Caesar declared, spreading his arms in the manner of someone about to deliver a revelation the world had been waiting for, "was use Fish-Man Lineage Factors to replace the human template. A simple substitution. Human to Fish-Man."
He brought his hands together, leaning forward, eyes gleaming. "But that's primitive. It's embarrassing, frankly. It completely misses what's actually inside those Lineage Factors."
"Fish-Man lineage isn't just a body type. It's the accumulated inheritance of creatures who have spent millions of years hunting the deepest oceans. The genetic memory of monsters." Caesar's voice rose with the fervor of someone who had been waiting to deliver this speech for a long time. "What I intend to do is fully awaken that dormant power. Combine it with my own artificial Devil Fruit research. Grant you the ability to use Fruit-level capabilities without ever touching an actual Devil Fruit. True deep-sea warriors, built from the ground up."
Doberman's eyes widened despite himself. It sounded almost impressive.
But that still didn't explain the restraints.
"There's nothing to worry about, Vice Admiral."
Caesar's smile didn't waver. "The steps where things might have gone wrong have already been corrected. Thanks, in large part, to the generous contributions of your subordinates."
Doberman's eyes went wide.
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