Borsalino's three demands were not logistically outrageous, and York had roughly anticipated them beforehand from his vantage point. So, Ginny immediately gave the young Marine an affirmative, confident reply.
"No problem at all! The Crimson Harvest Pirates can agree to all of your requests!"
Hearing this, Borsalino's slightly tensed nerves finally relaxed beneath his yellow knit cap.
Afterward, he proactively suggested exchanging encrypted Den Den Mushi frequencies to formally facilitate the transaction. Ginny had absolutely no objection to this and readily exchanged contact numbers with him.
Subsequently, the Marine envoy quickly boarded his rowboat and left the beach. Ginny immediately returned to the palace and reported the exact details of this exchange to York.
York's eyes narrowed slightly after hearing the report.
He hadn't expected the Marine high command to agree so readily to such a morbid demand. After all, when negotiating a high-stakes deal, most of the time it involved the other party asking for an exorbitant price and aggressively bargaining down.
'Could Sengoku be secretly playing tricks, giving me the remains of completely unrelated people?' York speculated, tapping his fingers on his throne. He decided to wait patiently for the trap to spring.
In the blink of an eye, several tense days passed.
The Marines had officially decided on the neutral transaction location and notified the Crimson Harvest Pirates via the previously exchanged Den Den Mushi contact number.
York did not appear in person; the frontline exchange was still mainly handled by Ginny and Kuma, while the Flame Emperor observed from afar in the deep shadows, providing lethal, level support if things went awry.
The two parties agreed to meet on a deserted, rocky island in the New World.
Both sides landed on the island from the east and west, finally meeting formally on the sandy beach in the southern part of the atoll.
"Did you bring what we asked for, Marine?" Ginny asked haughtily, looking up at the opposing party.
Borsalino was still in charge of the transaction for the Marines; after all, he already had experience communicating with this specific crew, and suddenly changing personnel could trigger a violent misunderstanding.
Borsalino silently waved his hand. Four heavily armed Marines carried two wooden coffins forward, carefully placing them on the beach sand.
"Did you bring the prisoners we asked for?" Borsalino countered, tilting his head.
Ginny smirked. Two Crimson Harvest Pirates likewise pushed a chained young man out of their ranks.
"Sakazuki!!"
Seeing his captured classmate alive, Borsalino's usually lazy face briefly lit up with genuine relief, but then he quickly noticed something was terribly wrong.
"Where is Vice Admiral Tsuru?!" Borsalino demanded, his hand inching toward his sword. "You explicitly said it was a fair, simultaneous trade! Where is Vice Admiral Tsuru?!"
Ginny let out a soft, mocking sneer, resting one hand on her hip.
"Vice Admiral Tsuru is, of course, still locked up securely in our impenetrable prison!"
"You broke your word!!" Borsalino immediately cursed, shedding his casual demeanor.
Ginny extended her pinky finger and lazily dug in her ear, entirely unfazed by his anger.
"It's not breaking our word! It's that we simply don't trust you Government dogs!"
Ginny pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Who in the New World doesn't know that Admiral Sengoku is renowned as the 'Tactical Genius'?! With his cunning wisdom, if he just found two random bodies of death row inmates to fool us, wouldn't our Empire suffer a huge loss?!"
Hearing this, the still-young Borsalino's face visibly twitched.
He hadn't expected the Crimson Harvest Pirates to have critically considered such dark, logistical details. The key point was that the two bodies they brought this time truly were those of two anonymous death row inmates, and it was indeed Admiral Sengoku's covert doing.
The adult body belonged to a female pirate who had recently been tortured to death in Impel Down. The child's body was that of a nameless orphan who had died of illness in a government facility. The true, sacred remains of Admiral Zephyr's wife and child were still safely resting in their quiet graves in their hometown.
Click! Click!
The Seastone handcuffs and shackles binding Sakazuki's hands and feet were unlocked by the pirates. A Crimson Harvest Pirate pushed him forcefully from behind, causing the furious recruit to stumble forward two steps into the Marines' line.
Ginny said in a condescending, absolute tone, "We'll generously return this hotheaded recruit to you first. We won't even bother inspecting these two fake bodies."
"You go back, tell your 'Tactical Genius' to bring Admiral Zephyr's true wife and child's remains, and then we can discuss formally releasing Vice Admiral Tsuru."
Ginny's eyes darkened. "We've shown our sincerity here by releasing him. If you dare to play any more sly tricks, Captain York said..."
She paused, letting the silence stretch. "...He wouldn't mind personally taking a look at the scenery of your Marineford."
The last sentence was a naked, apocalyptic threat. After Borsalino safely returned with Sakazuki and relayed the message to Sengoku, the Admiral dared not be careless in the slightest.
He had personally experienced York's nuclear, island-shattering power at Water 7 and Beehive Island. If York truly went to Marineford and unleashed that devastation, then apart from him, Garp, and perhaps a tiny fraction of high-tier combatants, the entire Marine Headquarters would truly be utterly, permanently destroyed.
Sighing softly, rubbing his exhausted temples, Sengoku told Borsalino to reply to Ginny.
"We need time."
"Admiral Zephyr's hometown is not located in the New World, and the remains of his wife and child are buried safely in his homeland in the blues. Three to five days are simply not enough to make the journey."
To this, Ginny showed sufficient, calculated magnanimity.
"Our Empire is very patient. Whenever you actually bring Admiral Zephyr's true wife and child's remains, we will proceed with the second transaction."
The communication was cut, and this time Sengoku truly dared not resort to tactical deception again.
He personally sailed a lone, unmarked ship to Zephyr's homeland, arriving quietly before the grassy graves of his best friend's murdered wife and child.
Dismissing his subordinates so they wouldn't have to witness the disgrace, the Admiral sat alone, cross-legged in the dirt, before the dual tombstones.
Sengoku softly, painfully recounted the impossible difficulties the Marines were facing to the two deceased, pleading with Zephyr's wife and child to forgive his unforgivable intrusion.
Afterward, Sengoku personally pushed down their two stone markers and began to dig the graves with his bare hands.
Before long, two sealed coffins were unearthed from the soil and personally transported by Sengoku onto the Marine ship, returning silently towards the New World shipping lane.
When Ginny and Borsalino met for the third time on the deserted beach, these two specific coffins, personally unearthed by Sengoku, were delivered directly to Ginny.
And Ginny also brought Vice Admiral Tsuru, who appeared slightly listless and pale due to being continuously restrained by Seastone handcuffs.
However, looking at Vice Admiral Tsuru at this moment, Borsalino was momentarily stunned. Apart from the exhaustion caused by the Seastone, she seemed to have miraculously become somewhat younger—or at the very least, far more radiant and physically beautiful than Borsalino remembered the stern Vice Admiral to be.
Borsalino instinctively tilted his head, about to ask what they had done to her, but he suddenly remembered the terrifying rumors of York's abilities. He quickly closed his mouth, swallowing hard, and instead said to Ginny, "We've brought exactly what you asked for. Can you release Vice Admiral Tsuru now?!"
Ginny looked down at the wooden coffins, which still had fresh traces of homeland mud clinging to their edges.
Zephyr's wife and child were brutally killed at the beginning of this year, several months ago. If Zephyr hadn't done any specialized preservation when they were buried, they would likely be a sealed coffin full of rotten flesh and bones by now. In other words, even if Zephyr himself were present on this beach, he wouldn't be able to physically distinguish whether the people inside the coffins were truly his wife and child without intense forensic examination.
However, regarding this specific transaction, York had said before they left that...
If Sengoku continued to play sly tricks, he would truly go to Marineford and detonate a nuclear bomb.
And this apocalyptic threat, in fact, was the absolute fundamental guarantee that the Marines would strictly uphold their word this time!
So, Ginny still did not directly open the coffins for a morbid inspection. She merely sent her men to receive and secure the coffins, and simultaneously released Vice Admiral Tsuru back to the Marines' side.
Of course, the physical key to the Seastone handcuffs was absolutely not given, as it was still tactically necessary to guard against Vice Admiral Tsuru suddenly regaining her powers and turning against them on the beach.
She had certainly not been physically abused in the Crimson Harvest Pirates' dungeons; she ate and drank well every day, and apart from helping York intimately solve some 'problems,' she was always kept in peak physical condition.
"Transaction complete!" Ginny smirked, looking at the tense Marine side as Tsuru was supported by Borsalino.
"If we find out that you still brought fake bodies this time... we firmly believe your Fleet Admiral Sengoku is well aware of the consequences!!"
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