Chapter 147: The Fallen Shichibukai Ahead Of Time
“Science Unit? Zephyr, what are you looking for Doctor Vegapunk for?” In the Fleet Admiral’s office in Marineford at Navy Headquarters, Sengoku looked at the vigorous Zephyr in surprise. Zephyr had been back at Navy Headquarters for several days, but he had been busy with official duties. Zephyr had also been moving around a lot these past few days, and this was the first time they had met since their last parting.
As soon as they met, he noticed the difference in Zephyr.
His appearance was still the same as before, but his temperament had undergone a complete change. His entire spirit and energy were completely different from before. In the instant he saw him, it felt like they were back decades ago, back in that spirited era of theirs.
Back then, Zephyr was just that spirited and high-spirited.
Unfortunately, after Zephyr’s family was killed, he never saw that Zephyr from his memory again.
“I want to ask about something, Sengoku. Is there anything difficult about that?”
Zephyr asked in return.
“It can be done, but… aside from the Science Unit’s guards, even I need to submit a formal invitation to meet Doctor Vegapunk, and it’s best to explain what the matter is… Zephyr, what do you want with Doctor Vegapunk?” As Sengoku spoke, he rummaged through the drawer and took out a stack of application forms.
“Still need to fill out a form? That’s really troublesome…”
Zephyr took the application form, glanced at it twice, then pulled a sign pen from Sengoku’s pen holder. He sat down on the sofa with the application form, leaned over the coffee table, and started filling it out. Over these years, he had practiced writing with his left hand, or rather, with his control over his body muscles, left-handed writing didn’t require deliberate practice. “Reason for the meeting… Custom prosthetic limb? Does Doctor Vegapunk have time?”
He looked up at Sengoku and asked.
“Prosthetic limb…” Sengoku was stunned for a moment, not expecting this reason. A few years ago, Zephyr lost an arm, and while recuperating in the hospital, there was mention of helping him install a prosthetic limb, but Zephyr had refused at the time.
Later, Sengoku and others had indirectly asked a few times, and after receiving uniform rejections, no one mentioned it again.
He didn’t expect Zephyr to bring it up himself now.
“For installing a prosthetic limb, the hospital…”
“I want the best.”
Zephyr interrupted Sengoku. He put down the sign pen, reached out to touch the wound on his severed arm, looked at Sengoku, and said seriously: “The hospital’s prosthetic limbs aren’t durable. I want to restore my strength as much as possible. If Doctor Vegapunk has time, I hope he can custom-make a prosthetic limb for me.”
This request was not excessive, strictly speaking.
Zephyr was, after all, a former Navy Admiral, and he still retained the General Rank, enjoying all the privileges of an Admiral.
However,
the problem was that Doctor Vegapunk nominally belonged to the Navy Science Unit, but in reality, Fleet Admiral Sengoku had limited control over this unit, especially over Doctor Vegapunk, whom he couldn’t command.
So,
he couldn’t make any promises regarding Zephyr’s request.
“I’ll send the application form to Doctor Vegapunk as soon as possible, but… Zephyr, don’t hold out too much hope. Doctor Vegapunk is currently immersed in researching Bartholomew Kuma’s Devil Fruit ability, and he may not agree to your request,” Sengoku said slowly.
“Helping a former Navy Admiral restore his strength as much as possible—Doctor Vegapunk may not refuse.”
Zephyr held a different opinion.
Although he had never interacted with Doctor Vegapunk, as the head instructor of new recruits at Navy Headquarters, his connections were astonishing. Without much effort, he contacted a group of Navy officers who had interacted with Doctor Vegapunk for various reasons.
From them, he pieced together a general impression of Doctor Vegapunk—a madman obsessed with scientific research.
Compared to promising benefits, a sufficiently interesting research subject would attract Doctor Vegapunk’s attention more.
“…That’s true.”
Upon hearing Zephyr’s words, Sengoku realized Doctor Vegapunk’s personality. Zephyr’s request might actually be fulfilled, after all, custom-making a prosthetic limb for Zephyr meant a chance to research an Admiral-level expert.
Even if Borsalino had helped Zephyr with experiments, experimental data at the Navy Admiral level could never be too much.
“Then I’ll leave it to you, Sengoku.”
Zephyr finished filling out the application form and placed it, along with the sign pen, on Sengoku’s desk.
“Zephyr, you… you’ve changed!” Sengoku didn’t look at the text on the paper but stared intently at Zephyr, as if trying to see through his thoughts.
“Haha! I thought you could hold back from asking!”
Zephyr laughed heartily twice.
“I’ve heard that a lot lately. Tsuru asked, Garp asked, even that kid Kuzan hounded me relentlessly, giving me a huge headache.” He sat back down on the sofa, picked up the tea that had lost its heat, and drank it down without care. In the past, for the sake of his health, he wouldn’t have drunk such cold tea.
Sengoku saw all of this.
“Your illness is cured?”
“That’s right, completely eradicated. As for how… it was Eckmond Kingdom’s court doctor. Over a dozen doctors said it couldn’t be cured, only suppressed with medication. They prescribed a huge pile of drugs, but I forgot the order, so I drank them all at once… and the illness was gone.”
“…You guy!”
Sengoku sighed.
That’s fooling a kid!
How could there be such a coincidence? But he also gave up on getting to the bottom of it. Zephyr was even using such a clumsy lie to hide it, which meant he clearly didn’t want to tell anyone the truth. Even if he pressed relentlessly, he might not get the secret out of Zephyr.
As an old friend, he knew Zephyr’s stubbornness all too well.
“As long as it’s not related to the Op-Op Fruit.”
Sengoku gave Zephyr a deep look.
The Op-Op Fruit was something the World Government had always pursued. If used by someone with sufficient talent, it could grant humans “eternal life,” the so-called Perpetual Youth Surgery. Though there were various difficulties and it wasn’t something that could be done casually.
Even so, the World Government was still fanatically pursuing it, and to this day, they had a bounty of five billion Beli. Whoever found the Op-Op Fruit and handed it over to the World Government would get five billion Beli.
That amount was almost equal to Whitebeard’s bounty.
“Op-Op Fruit? I’ve never seen such a thing, and I’ve never encountered its ability user either—if it exists,” Zephyr’s attitude was very frank.
Sengoku nodded slightly.
He had just asked casually, making a sudden association, and didn’t really suspect anything.
“I’ll leave my prosthetic limb matter to you, Sengoku.” Zephyr stood up, said goodbye to Sengoku, and left. After exiting the Fleet Admiral’s office, Binz, who had been waiting silently in the corridor, quietly followed behind Zephyr.
Binz followed closely behind Zephyr and quietly said: “Teacher, there’s new news from the New World.”
“We’ll talk later.”
Zephyr stopped Binz from continuing.
This was Navy Headquarters, the central hub of millions of Navy personnel, with extremely tight security. Not to mention the hidden surveillance, there were numerous video Den Den Mushi installed openly in many locations of the building for monitoring.
Even if they couldn’t clearly record voices, Navy Headquarters had many experts, more than one skilled in lip-reading.
Zephyr led Binz out of the heavily guarded building quickly. When passing by an empty training ground, Zephyr stopped, gazed at the unmanned training ground, and said: “What does that kid Prince Elus want?”
He hadn’t hidden his cooperation with Elus from Ain and Binz.
These two most loyal students didn’t disappoint Zephyr either. Over the Navy, the one they trusted was Zephyr. Even if Zephyr said he wanted to kick Sengoku off the Fleet Admiral seat and take it himself, Ain and Binz would dare to stab at Sengoku.
Ain and Binz were Zephyr’s students and also his confidants.
Also,
news from the New World—this was also a code.
If it was Ain who had something to report, Binz would say Ain’s name directly. New World referred not to Ain, but to Elus.
“It’s related to Crocodile. During the previous World Conference, Prince Elus sent an aide-de-camp with King Cobra to Alabasta. Just now, Crocodile was defeated and fled injured. Once the news spreads, the World Government and Navy might strip him of his Seven Warlords position…”
“Wait, Crocodile escaped? What exactly happened? Tell me in detail.”
Binz paused, but fortunately Elus had explained clearly when contacting him. He sorted his thoughts a bit and said: “Around noon today, that Dillon under Prince Elus, the one nicknamed Executioner, went to war with Crocodile in Alabasta Kingdom…”
Time shifts back a little.
Alabasta Kingdom, in the desert outside Rain Base.
The battle between Dillon and Baroque Works had entered a white-hot phase. At first, Dillon was thrown into disarray by the bizarre abilities of Baroque Works’ ability users, but after figuring out their specific abilities, he regrouped and quickly gained the upper hand.
This was not surprising at all.
The gap in raw strength was too great. Though Baroque Works’ ability users had strange powers, they weren’t enough to make Dillon lose resistance outright. Relying on the powerful vitality and recovery of his Zoan Devil Fruit, plus Armament Haki trained to an extremely high level, his counterattacks were incredibly powerful.
In his view, the trickiest Miss Goldenweek was the first to be taken down by Dillon. The little girl’s strength was all in her fruit ability; her own combat power was negligible, just like any teenage girl, with nothing special.
The second to fall was Robin.
The Flower-Flower Fruit’s ability couldn’t take down Dillon, but in combat, it always disrupted his rhythm, so he took her down second.
Without these two holding him back, Dillon could finally go all out. He tanked Crocodile’s attacks head-on and defeated Baroque Works’ cadres one by one. Under this gulf-like gap, these cadres couldn’t even block a single punch from Dillon.
Soon,
Before Princess Vivi, Igaram, and the others could recover from their initial worry over Dillon’s setbacks, all of Baroque Works’ high-ranking agents, who seemed like a cloud of experts, were defeated, leaving only Crocodile, the big boss codenamed Mr. 0.
“I heard you went to the New World too. Why not train Haki?”
Dillon swung his fist, knocking Mr. 1 out completely, while looking at Crocodile opposite and voicing his question.
“Desert Spada.”
Crocodile had no intention of talking to Dillon. The tenacious Sand Crocodile didn’t choose to give up, even knowing his chances of victory were minuscule. He continued to resist, keenly noticing that during the previous battle, Dillon had intentionally or unintentionally kept the battle’s aftershocks away from Princess Vivi and her group.
He immediately realized this might be his only chance.
Instead of using higher-damage moves, he used a large-area attack like Desert Spada.
The sandstorm detached from Crocodile’s palm and grew at an astonishing speed. This attack powerful enough to destroy an oasis rapidly rushed toward Princess Vivi and her group.
“Cunning bastard.”
Dillon frowned, tossed aside Mr. 1 in his hand, and was forced to abandon the attack plan against Crocodile that was nearly formed in his mind. He moved at his fastest speed to position himself in front of Princess Vivi and the others, transforming directly into a Woolly Rhinoceros and tanking the sandstorm’s attack with his body.
First, Alabasta Kingdom was an important ally.
Second, after these days of contact, he had come to respect this kind-hearted Princess. He felt more rulers like her were better, so both publicly and privately, from any angle, he didn’t want to see Princess Vivi harmed.
Desert Spada was blocked by Dillon.
Crocodile turned into quicksand, hiding in the sandstorm, and swung his poisoned Golden Hook viciously at Dillon. However… Dillon, fully covered in Armament Haki, wasn’t poisoned, and the Golden Hook snapped off against his neck.
Amid Crocodile’s shocked gaze, Dillon unceremoniously punched the cunning crocodile.
Finally admitting defeat after spitting blood, Crocodile didn’t care for his subordinates and directly elementalized to flee. Dillon chased for a distance but couldn’t catch up. The desert environment favored Crocodile, and worried about a counterattack on Princess Vivi and the others, he ultimately gave up pursuing Crocodile.
