Ron walked up to Bucky.
Bucky looked up.
His eyes were unfocused.
Like a machine unplugged.
Jessica stood beside Bucky.
Her right hand hovered.
A pale purple aura seeped from her palm, enveloping Bucky's head.
This was the mental shield of the Soul-Soul Fruit.
Ron held a three-centimeter-thick paper document.
The Winter Soldier project file delivered by Fury.
He opened the first page.
The paper rustled as it rubbed together.
The paper was covered with Russian instructions, nerve resection records, and electroshock brainwashing parameters.
The core of the brainwashing was a word trigger.
Eleven Russian words.
Read aloud in a specific order, directly activating the Hydra-implanted deep-seated obedience program in the brain.
The program was etched into the deepest layer of the hippocampus.
Existing neuroscience equipment couldn't retrieve it.
Ron closed the file.
The file slammed onto the iron table beside him with a dull thud.
A semi-transparent system panel popped up on the right side of his field of vision.
[Special Option: Consume 5000 Justice Points to use Impel Down's "Purification" function to remove the Hydra implant from the Winter Soldier's brain.]
[Purification complete—]
[1. Bucky Barnes's Sin Value will decrease from 3700 (forced crime conversion) to 300 (residual psychological trauma).]
[2. Willpower will recover from A+ (suppressed) to S rank.]
[3. Can be converted into a Navy member. Suitable rank: Navy Captain.]
[4. The purification process takes 72 hours. During this time, the target will fall into a deep coma and may experience severe stress reactions caused by memory flashbacks. Requires constant supervision from a psychic.] Ron looked at his remaining balance.
Current Balance: 17400.
Three days of sweeping through Manhattan gangs, Justice Points accumulated to 22400.
Unlocking Impel Down's fourth level consumed 20000.
Remaining 2400.
Last night, Wilson Fisk was detained, netting 15,000.
Total: 17,400.
Deduct 5,000, leaving 12,400.
Enough.
Ron raised his hand and pressed the confirmation button in mid-air.
Intense energy poured out from the system space.
The heat flowed directly into Bucky's head.
Bucky's body tensed abruptly.
The conceptual seastone handcuffs locked to the water pipe vibrated violently.
The metal chains clanged against the iron pipe.
Bucky opened his mouth wide.
A suppressed roar squeezed out from deep in his throat.
Veins bulged in his neck, veins almost bursting through his skin.
Jessica's mental shield instantly lit up three degrees.
Purple light flashed wildly.
The Soul-Soul Fruit's mental perception network was directly struck by a massive torrent of memories.
Jessica's body swayed.
She saw those images.
Not her memories.
It's Pakistan.
A train speeding along.
1945.
Snowstorm raging.
A hand slips from an icy metal handrail.
Plunges rapidly.
The image shatters.
A chillingly cold operating table.
The operating lights sting the retinas.
Instructions in heavily accented Russian echo in the ears.
High-voltage current pierces the skull.
A scream is forcibly suppressed between teeth.
Blood drips down the chin.
The scene shifts again.
A cold sniper rifle.
The crosshairs are on the back of a stranger's head.
The trigger is pulled.
Red and white liquid splatters on the wall.
Turns around.
Takes the next target's file.
The cycle repeats.
Seventy years.
Endless killing and freezing.
Jessica's eyes redden.
She gritted her teeth, her right hand stubbornly maintaining its downward pressing motion.
She wouldn't let go.
"Don't be afraid," Jessica whispered.
She had experienced the feeling of being stripped of her will and used as a weapon.
Bucky's body writhed wildly on the ground.
His metal left arm slammed into the concrete, creating shallow craters.
Seventy years of neural imprints were forcibly stripped away by the system's energy.
Ten minutes later.
The convulsions began to subside.
Bucky's screams gradually faded, eventually turning into intermittent gasps.
His body went limp.
He fell into a deep coma.
The purification process entered a stable cleansing phase.
Jessica withdrew her hand, and the purple light dissipated.
Ron turned and walked towards the basement exit.
He climbed the metal stairs step by step.
He pushed open the hatch at the top.
He reached the shipyard's rooftop.
The night wind from the East River blew in his face.
A mingled smell of heavy industrial oil and the salty tang of the sea wafted through the air.
Ron walked to the edge of the rooftop, his hands resting on the rusty railing.
The system panel displayed another notification.
[The extraordinary essence "Ultimate Willpower, Limitless Physical Fitness" has been successfully forged.] Kingpin's legacy.
The purest spoils extracted from Level 4 of Impel Down.
Ron opened the details of the output.
[Output: Paramecia-type Gravity-Gravity Fruit.]
[Ability Description: Manipulates gravity. Can arbitrarily increase or decrease the gravity on oneself and objects in contact.]
[Current Development Limit: Twenty times gravity.] A dark gray fruit slowly rotated in the system space.
Layer upon layer of spiral patterns covered its surface.
Twenty times gravity.
Ron stared at the fruit.
This was not only a killing weapon for large-scale clearing.
It was also the ultimate training tool for pushing physical limits.
Punching under twenty times gravity would repeatedly tear and rebuild muscle fibers. But Ron didn't intend to eat this fruit himself.
He already had the Akainu template.
The destructive power of lava was sufficient for most frontal battles.
The Gravity-Gravity Fruit needed a dedicated melee master to unleash its full potential.
Jack ate the Target-Target Fruit, focusing on long-range sniping.
Frank ate the Wolf Fruit, specializing in regeneration and close-quarters biting.
Jessica ate the Soul-Soul Fruit, responsible for intelligence gathering and mind control.
Ron's gaze pierced through the floorboards, looking towards the basement.
Bucky Barnes.
A super soldier forced to kill seventy people.
Hydra gave him the serum and welded a metal arm onto him.
Those were the shackles controlling him.
He needed a power of his own.
Not one imposed upon him.
A weapon he chose to take up himself.
When he woke up.
The Gravity-Gravity Fruit was Captain Buggy's first induction gift.
Ron closed the system panel.
The unlock conditions for Level 5 of Impel Down haven't been revealed yet.
But Level 4 already requires 20,000 Justice Points.
The next level will only require an even more astronomical number.
Seventy percent of the gangs in New York City have been eliminated.
What remains are all low-level street thugs.
Not much Justice Points can be extracted from them.
Expansion to the outskirts is necessary.
The coordinates of Hydra's North American safe houses provided by S.H.I.E.L.D. are seventeen.
This is a juicy piece of meat.
Ron pulled out his communicator from his pocket.
He pressed the call button on the encrypted channel.
"Frank."
"Here." Frank's voice came through the earpiece.
"Prepare to leave the city." Ron looked at the distant Manhattan skyline.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. gave us a big gift. Tonight, we're taking down Hydra's territory."
"Roger. My bones are itching for a fight." Frank hung up.
At the same time.
Washington, D.C.
An underground bunker on the banks of the Potomac River.
Alexander Pierce sat in front of a monitor screen.
A satellite view of the New York shipyard was displayed on the screen.
A red marker was positioned directly above the shipyard.
Pierce pressed the communication button on the table.
"Winter Operation Backup Plan, Progress Report." A deep male voice came through the speaker.
"Crossbones Team is assembled." Rumlow's voice was low.
"Target: Brooklyn Shipyard, New York."
"Mission Orders: Recover the Winter Soldier. If unrecoverable, destroy on site." Pierce tapped his fingers twice on the table.
"Where's the Judge?"
"Evaluation results show that conventional weapons are ineffective against him." Rumlow replied.
"Then don't use conventional weapons." Pierce interrupted the report.
He took a black metal briefcase from a drawer.
He opened the briefcase.
Inside lay a silver cylinder.
The surface bore the old Stark Industries logo, and the core had been modified.
It emitted a faint blue glow.
"Take this with you." Pierce's gaze was fixed on the cylinder.
"A miniature implosion bomb modified from a Chitauri energy core."
"Enough to wipe the entire shipyard, along with two surrounding city blocks, off the map." There was a second of silence on the other end of the communicator.
"Sir, that will trigger a full-scale intervention from SHIELD," Rumlow warned.
"SHIELD is too busy dealing with its own problems right now." Pierce sneered.
"That idiot Fury thinks he can use his intelligence on Kingpin to track down the rest."
"He has no idea he's walking into a meat grinder." Pierce closed the metal case.
"Time to act, now."
"Let that judge understand that the rules of this world aren't his to dictate." Tri-Wing Building.
Fury stood before the holographic projection.
The USB drive Ron had handed over was plugged into the reader.
Gideon Malik's video played on a loop.
Hill stood to the side, holding a freshly printed document.
"Director, we've found Senator Malik's itinerary. He's going to Geneva tomorrow for the Global Security Summit." Fury's one eye stared at Malik's cufflinks in the video.
"A high-ranking member of the Security Council, making a deal with Kingpin." Fury's fingers tightened on the edge of the table.
"Hydra has never been completely eradicated. They've just changed their skin." Hill looked up.
"Should we take action against Malik?"
"We can't alert them." Fury unplugged the USB drive.
"We need more evidence. Send the seventeen coordinates Ron gave us to the Special Operations Team."
"Tonight, simultaneously take down those seventeen outposts."
"I want to see just how many rats Hydra has hidden." Shipyard rooftop.
Ron's Observation Haki flickered.
A faint hostility emanated from the south.
Not directed at him.
It was directed at Bucky in the basement.
Ron turned and looked at the southern night sky.
Dark red lava seeped from the tip of his right index finger, which hung by his side.
It dripped onto the concrete floor,
burning a charred hole.
"The hounds are coming."