On the other end of the Den Den Mushi, Sengoku and Garp were watching the same footage.
Their reactions came almost at the same time.
"To hold Kizaru off to this extent…" Sengoku murmured, staring intently at the screen.
Garp folded his thick arms across his chest, his usual carefree grin nowhere to be seen.
"That brat from back then really has grown into one hell of a monster."
Sengoku immediately rounded on him.
"You've got some nerve saying that! How many monsters have come out from under your influence? Every damn one of them ends up giving the Marines trouble!"
"T-Those were accidents!"
Garp's voice instantly shot up.
"I still trained Smoker, didn't I?! He turned out perfectly fine!"
"One Smoker doesn't even begin to make up for it! Your 'accidents' happen far too often! The Marines don't need this kind of accident!"
"What did you say?!"
"Was I not clear enough?!"
The two old men went back and forth until the originally tense conference room was filled almost entirely by their booming argument through the Den Den Mushi.
The assembled officers kept their eyes forward and their mouths firmly shut.
Nobody was foolish enough to interrupt.
Around the same time, Sakazuki received the World Government's response.
The Five Elders were not particularly concerned about Bullet.
Or, more precisely—
once Saint Saturn confirmed that the giant robot Emet had not been damaged, he dumped virtually all further decision-making onto the Marines.
After all, Emet should have been destroyed long ago.
Saturn had secretly preserved it instead.
That was something neither the other Elders nor Imu could ever be allowed to learn.
With Bullet's current location completely unknown, however, the Marines were left debating what level of response would even be appropriate.
In the end, they decided to make the attack public.
Egghead and Vegapunk were deliberately removed from the official announcement, with the report merely stating that Douglas Bullet had assaulted an important Marine facility.
His bounty was raised once again.
The entire conclusion was built on a misunderstanding.
Yet that misunderstanding would cast a very real shadow over the future.
…
On an unnamed island—
"What the hell?!"
Bullet slammed his fist into a table.
"What are those damn Marines talking about? When did I attack one of their bases?!"
The shockwave from his punch burst outward, flattening a large section of the surrounding area.
Before the debris had even finished falling, however, Bullet had already calmed down.
"…Unless they discovered my plan."
His expression darkened.
"Then I'll have to speed things up."
He immediately contacted Buena Festa.
"That Pirate Expo you mentioned before."
"I'm in."
And so, thanks to one casual lie from Cain, another improvised lie from Vegapunk, and one convenient decision by the Marines—
the Pirate Expo was pushed forward dramatically.
Festa soon released the announcement to the world.
A treasure left behind by Pirate King Roger would appear at the Expo.
And judging by the timing—
the event would now take place right around the time the Straw Hats were scheduled to reunite.
…
By the time the news reached Cain, two days had passed.
It was deep into the night.
Uta had only recently fallen asleep when Cain woke her.
Not because he wanted to torment her again.
Vegapunk had finally completed Kuma's operation and asked them to come over.
Egghead was unnaturally quiet at night.
Cain and Uta walked through the empty corridors until they unexpectedly came across a newspaper vending box.
Apparently, Egghead actually had those.
It was supposedly one of Morgans' investments, designed so the island's researchers could immediately get their hands on the latest newspapers.
Cain casually pulled out a copy and unfolded it while walking.
The Pirate Expo announcement dominated the front page.
"This is getting really weird."
Cain frowned at the paper.
Aside from the Summit War, he had genuinely never intended to deliberately interfere with any major event from the original timeline.
So what was this?
He hadn't even touched Bullet.
He had merely dumped some blame on him as a convenient excuse.
Yet somehow the butterfly effect had flapped its wings so hard that the entire plot was accelerating on its own.
The Eternal Pose pointing toward Laugh Tale would appear at that Expo too.
Cain turned the newspaper over and rubbed his forehead.
It really felt as though someone had hit fast-forward on the story.
Then he realized—
'Oh.'
'That was me.'
Never mind.
"Roger's treasure…"
Uta leaned over to read the article and smiled.
"Knowing Luffy, there's no way he'll ignore something like that."
She rested against Cain's shoulder again, while her mind quietly began calculating the Straw Hats' expected arrival times at Sabaody Archipelago.
She had already run those numbers many times.
If she interfered with the situation just a little, several of Luffy's scattered crewmates probably wouldn't make it back in time.
Which meant—
Pirate King Roger's treasure…
or your friends.
'Come on, Luffy.'
'Choose.'
"Uta?"
Cain called her once.
Then again.
"Uta! What's wrong?"
Uta finally snapped back to reality.
She blinked, then immediately put on her usual bright smile.
"I'm fine, Cain!"
"You sure?"
Cain waved a hand in front of her face.
"You've kept Uta World active almost constantly lately, and you barely slept tonight. I thought you might be exhausted."
For the past two days, Uta had continued staying beside Cain in her tiny Seraphim-inspired form, stubbornly refusing to return to normal.
Even though she only needed to keep Kizaru trapped now, maintaining her ability continuously was still exhausting.
Uta tilted her head.
"If anything, I think you're the tired one."
That was undeniably true.
Whenever Uta fell asleep at night, Uta World naturally disappeared as well.
Which meant Cain had to secretly slip over to Kizaru under cover of darkness, give him enough anesthetic to keep him from waking properly, and place Seastone against his body.
There simply wasn't a more convenient method.
Actually knocking Kizaru unconscious through brute force every single night would have been ridiculous.
And Cain had to do all of this without being spotted by the Marines, Vegapunk's Satellites, or the Pacifistas patrolling Egghead.
The nightly routine was honestly more exhausting than fighting Pacifistas during the day.
Uta, meanwhile, had spent those evenings enthusiastically enjoying her small form—asking Cain for hugs, piggyback rides, forehead kisses, and all the childish affection she remembered from years ago.
Cain could handle that much perfectly well.
Anything beyond ordinary affection while she looked eight years old, however, was a line he had absolutely no intention of crossing.
And so two exhausting days passed.
Until two hours earlier.
While Uta was still awake, she had secretly mixed what she believed was one of Hongo's absurdly powerful Sea King medicines into Cain's drink as another prank.
The result?
Nothing.
Cain's constitution was so ridiculous that he drank the entire thing without reacting at all.
Uta had even quietly complained that Hongo's medicine was useless.
For the moment, though, none of that seemed important.
Cain and Uta rounded a corner—
and entered the open plaza where Kizaru had been resting.
They expected to find him asleep exactly as usual.
Instead, Kizaru's body was still lying beneath the moonlight—
but dozens of Marines were crowded around him.
Cain and Uta immediately ducked behind the wall.
Uta, still perched on Cain, whispered,
"What happened?"
"No idea."
Cain leaned closer.
"Let me listen."
The Marines were speaking in hushed, anxious voices.
"What do we do? Admiral Kizaru looks like he's dying…"
"Don't say that! Look at him—his complexion is perfectly healthy!"
"But he's bleeding from the nose!"
Another Marine sounded genuinely emotional.
"As expected of Admiral Kizaru. He must have been seriously injured fighting Bullet and deliberately kept it from us."
"How admirable…"
"Don't worry, Admiral! We'll protect your secret!"
Thanks to Vegapunk's fabricated story, combined with the fact that Uta had knocked the Marines unconscious halfway through the earlier chaos, everyone naturally believed Bullet had been responsible for the entire incident.
Unfortunately—
Kizaru currently looked rather alarming.
His face was flushed bright red.
His breathing came out in harsh bursts.
Blood was running from his nose.
His body occasionally twitched, and foam was beginning to gather around his mouth.
"Kizaru really is in trouble!"
Uta suddenly looked concerned.
"That doesn't make sense. Marines have been looking after him this whole time!"
Then something seemed to occur to her.
She searched through her pockets.
And froze.
Very slowly, Uta turned toward Cain.
Her expression became painfully awkward.
"Cain…"
"When you gave Kizaru his medicine earlier…"
"Did you use the bottle from the table?"
"Or the one beside the bed?"
Cain blinked.
"The one beside the bed."
"Why?"
Uta went rigid.
"That might have been…"
"…the Sea King aphrodisiac."
"What?!"
Cain nearly jumped straight into the air.
"GO GET VEGAPUNK! NOW!"
To stop Kizaru from waking prematurely, Cain had already tucked Seastone beneath his feet and against his chest.
Which meant—
Kizaru had apparently been conscious enough to experience the drug taking effect…
while being so completely weakened by Seastone that he couldn't move a single finger.
He had been suppressing the effects through sheer willpower for nearly two hours.
And now—
he had finally passed out and started foaming at the mouth.
The medicine had been designed for Sea Kings.
Even though Uta had used only a fraction of a normal dose, it was clearly far beyond what Kizaru's body was meant to handle.
Uta finally understood why Cain had shown absolutely no reaction earlier.
The medicine she intended for him had never reached him at all.
It had all ended up inside Kizaru.
As for the bottle Cain himself had drunk?
That had probably been the anesthetic.
And with Cain's Mythical Zoan physique—
a bottle of ordinary anesthetic might as well have been water.
--------
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