Leaving the Marines had been Dragon’s choice, and staying in the Marines was likewise Garp’s choice.
No matter which choice it was, they each had their own resolve. As for what it will be like when they meet again…
Garp has never been someone who could ignore his emotions. In the original timeline, he was the one who handed Dragon the key to escape the prison, and his pursuit of Luffy was a classic case of going through the motions without putting in real effort, merely striking a pose while holding the giant iron ball.
For Ace’s execution, he also completed a “piece exchange” with Sengoku. [TN: For Ace’s execution, Garp and Sengoku made a mutual “trade” — Garp didn’t fully rebel or stop it (despite being Ace’s grandfather), while Sengoku accepted Garp’s limited involvement. It was a pragmatic deal between them.]
However, Sengoku could understand Garp’s thoughts and also didn’t expect Garp to contribute much effort. Under those circumstances, Garp not causing extra trouble was already the greatest help.
Garp would head back to the East Blue from time to time, subjecting the pirates there to an overwhelming “dimensional reduction attack” from a top-tier powerhouse. Aside from Dragon, it was genuinely difficult for anyone else to stir up major trouble in East Blue. [TN: It describes a crushing defeat or competitive advantage where one party uses overwhelmingly superior power, technology, or dimensions of competition to obliterate a weaker, unprepared opponent.]
The Ohara incident did not have much impact on the vast seas. There were not many people who cared about history, and the World Government still possessed the greatest credibility on the seas.
If they said Ohara was evil, most people would still choose to believe them. That was despite the fact that the World Government barely controlled public opinion and allowed Morgans to publish all sorts of news every day.
Otherwise, given enough time, even if they couldn’t erase history, they could certainly fabricate a new history that everyone would believe.
Compared to the Buster Call on Ohara, however, the World Government had its own internal troubles to deal with. Impel Down, the great underwater prison known as an impregnable fortress and said to be impossible to escape from, welcomed an escapee today.
…..
A fortress-like tower stood deep beneath the sea, with most of the building submerged underwater. This was Impel Down, the world’s number one prison.
Surrounded by the Calm Belt, dangerous Sea Kings occasionally revealed themselves in the depths of the sea. Over its long history, countless dangerous criminals had been thrown into it, and only a handful had ever left alive.
The pirates imprisoned here were almost all sentenced to death or life imprisonment. From the moment they entered, they were cut off from the outside world.
But today, Impel Down’s impregnable defenses had been breached. Piercing sounds of alarms echoed throughout the prison, while panicked voices transmitted through loudspeakers and Den Den Mushi reached the ears of everyone inside.
“All combat personnel, assemble at the lift immediately! A high-level prisoner has escaped! I repeat! A high-level prisoner has escaped!”
The guards on duty did not spring into action at once. If anything, they seemed somewhat sluggish.
Although Impel Down had an alarm system, it was mostly decorative. Guards who had worked here for over a decade had never seen a prisoner successfully escape. In the past, whenever the alarms sounded, it had merely been part of emergency drills.
Impel Down’s reputation as an impregnable fortress was no exaggeration. Failed awakened Zoan users had become fearless Jailer Beasts. Their immense strength and near-immortal vitality made them reliable living tanks within the prison.
Surveillance Den Den Mushi provided almost complete surveillance coverage of every corner, while the Calm Belt eliminated any possibility of escaping by ship. Even if a prisoner somehow managed to seize a vessel and leave, the rotating sea currents would trap them.
Unless a government institution opened the sealed Gates of Justice, fugitives would eventually be stranded at sea.
Over time, even the prison guards had become somewhat complacent.
This escapee, however, was an exception. The powers of the Float-Float Fruit rendered all those restrictions meaningless before Golden Lion.
It was only after the subsequent explosions and the screams of the guards that everyone realized this was no drill.
“Damn it! How did he remove his Seastone shackles?”
“No, the shackles weren’t removed. Golden Lion… cut off his own feet.”
Inside the Chief Warden’s office, the current Chief Warden of Impel Down received the terrible news. He had never imagined that the Golden Lion, restrained by Seastone shackles, would sever his own feet after lying dormant for two years.
At this moment, they were worried not only about Golden Lion himself, but also that he might release the other prisoners and trigger an even greater riot.
Fortunately, Golden Lion did no such thing. He was merely searching for his weapons. He was accustomed to using those two swords and had no intention of replacing them.
“Jihahahahaha! Has anyone seen my swords? Kogarashi and Oto, they’re Famed Swords, you know. Don’t tell me you threw them away.”
“Shi… Shi… I really want a promotion… no, that’s not right… Shiki!”
With that, Hannyabal’s record gained a new achievement: facing the escaped Shiki alone and emerging completely unharmed. As for how he managed that, it could only be said that Golden Lion was in a particularly good mood after breaking out of the prison.
Government institutes like Impel Down rarely saw major incidents, so there were few opportunities to earn merit.
Promotions generally came through connections, waiting for others to make mistakes, or simply accumulating seniority. That was the norm in such places.
Ironically, Golden Lion’s escape accelerated Impel Down’s personnel changes. The original Chief Warden was dismissed for severe dereliction of duty, Magellan was promoted to Chief Warden, and Hannyabal inherited Magellan’s position as Vice Warden.
The outside world, however, knew almost nothing about the incident. Morgans’ newspaper had no branch office in Impel Down, and the World Government certainly wasn’t going to publicize the matter themselves.
As for informing the world that a dangerous criminal had escaped and telling everyone to pay attention, they had no intention of doing that.
Even among the Marines and Cipher Pol agents, very few people knew about it. Only a small number were assigned missions to track down Golden Lion’s whereabouts.
If possible, they hoped to capture him secretly.
But that was an extremely difficult task. Even though Golden Lion had been slowly declining ever since a ship’s helm became lodged in his head, and despite now having lost both feet, he remained a troublesome monster.
As long as he didn’t deliberately throw his life away, there were very few people capable of catching someone with the powers of the Float-Float Fruit.
While the World Government was secretly investigating Golden Lion’s whereabouts, Golden Lion himself had already begun “visiting old friends.”
He had already met Whitebeard in the New World. While searching for a suitable island to lift into the sky and planning to reconnect with some of his remaining subordinates and gradually rebuild his forces, he encountered a small ship in the first half of the Grand Line.
It belonged to Nereus, who had just finished his journey through the West Blue. After inspecting the cultivation progress of West Blue’s Eve, Nereus had neither continued swimming underwater nor flown on his return trip.
Instead, he casually found a Sea Beast to pull his ship and leisurely began his voyage home.
“Shiki, that new look of yours isn’t very impressive. Now that you’ve escaped prison, aren’t you even going to get yourself a pair of prosthetic legs?”
For a Two-Sword Style swordsman to switch from wielding swords with his hands to using his legs, it would be a lie to say it had no impact. There were countless islands across the seas. If all he wanted was a simple pair of prosthetic legs without any special functions, it would hardly be difficult.
“There’s no need. I’ve suddenly realized that this makes it easier to use my Devil Fruit abilities. But you… don’t seem surprised at all that I escaped from prison?”
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