Chapter 486: An Enemy of the World
"Doctor Caesar, what's happening?"
Momousagi stopped walking. The alarms were sharp and relentless, filling every corridor, impossible to dismiss.
"Yes, what is happening exactly?" Caesar looked just as blank.
Then something clicked. A memory from not so long ago, a moment very much like this one. Alarms screaming through a base he was in.
Caesar's face went chalk white in an instant. "It can't be Brett!"
Had that man actually planted someone inside the Science Division?
"Brett?" Caesar's strange leap of logic landed on Momousagi and activated something cold and focused in her. She hadn't crossed swords with him directly. But she had heard enough from her seniors to understand precisely what he was. His individual combat power, by any serious assessment, was roughly equivalent to the entire Navy Headquarters in one body.
World's strongest, without exaggeration. A monster beyond the category of monsters.
Her hand was already on her blade. Observation Haki spread from her in all directions without conscious thought.
And immediately she found something.
"There's a fight. That way!"
She was already running.
Even if it truly was Brett, she would not take a single step backward.
Because Justice demanded it.
"Hey! Vice Admiral Momousagi!"
Caesar's composure collapsed. He genuinely felt that Brett might materialize from any wall or ceiling at any moment. Being alone felt extremely unsafe.
He turned himself to gas and followed her.
Momousagi moved at full speed, guided by the currents of Observation Haki, taking corners and corridors until the sounds of the fight became audible and then the space itself opened up into a broader passage.
She stopped.
"Hm?"
The two figures in front of her were not what she had expected.
The one in control of the exchange was wearing white robes, a white suit visible beneath them. Moving with the kind of practiced economy that didn't announce itself.
CP0.
That was the only group with that look. The Five Elders must have sent someone to act as Caesar's security.
And the CP0 agent's opponent was a creature covered in tentacles, the sight of which settled something deeply uncomfortable in Momousagi's stomach.
"What is this?"
Caesar had caught up, looking pale and frightened, but when he took in the scene his fear shifted immediately into confusion and then into relief. Not Brett. He let out a shaky breath.
Then confusion returned. Doberman had gone off on his own? He hadn't given any commands.
"It appears to have lost control," the CP0 agent said, without breaking focus.
They stepped forward directly into the creature's angle of attack, ignoring the tentacles driving in from multiple directions, letting them crash against the blackened surface of their robes and deflect. Then they came in low and drove a kick square into the creature's chest.
The impact sent it backward through several walls.
"Doctor Caesar." Momousagi turned, and the look in her eyes had shifted into something careful and alert. An instinct she couldn't quite name had begun to pull at her. "Can you explain what's happening?"
"Just a criminal," Caesar said, dismissive and cheerful. "Initial test subject. The process wasn't complete, and now it's having an episode."
Was that so?
She didn't have strong grounds for doubt. Borsalino had told her clearly: this man Caesar had no compunctions about human experimentation. It would be entirely consistent with his character for the experimental subjects here to be convicted criminals.
Momousagi's brow creased slightly.
The Government sanctioned it. It was criminals being used. She had no authority to object.
"He's lying."
The words came from behind her.
Caesar's eyes went wide.
Momousagi turned.
The creature was walking back through the rubble of the broken walls it had been thrown through, blood running down from under its tentacles, leaving a trail on the floor. When it spoke again, the voice that came out was broken and labored, but it was a voice. A human voice.
"I finally... got to you, Gion."
"Silence it."
The CP0 agent moved like wind. One moment they were standing back from the creature, the next they were directly in front of its face, right index finger completely black, aimed at the center of mass.
"Finger Pistol."
They needed it quiet immediately.
But.
Clang.
A finger capable of piercing steel met a long black blade.
The CP0 agent was fast. Momousagi was faster. She had interposed herself between the agent and the creature in a motion that the eye barely registered, her sword raised to block the strike.
Two steps back. The CP0 agent's mask showed nothing, but the voice was measured and precise. "What exactly are you doing, Vice Admiral Momousagi? A lunatic's raving, and you allow yourself to be swayed by it?"
"I'm beginning to think the one who's lost their senses," Momousagi said quietly, her eyes moving sideways to take in the creature behind her without turning away from the agent, "might be someone else entirely."
She tilted her head slightly.
"This voice. Could it be... Doberman?"
"You're seeing me like this." The creature's breathing was ragged, blood still falling from its wounds. "I apologize, Gion. But I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you saw."
"Then." Momousagi's gaze moved to Caesar, who was still frozen in place, his expression caught between shock and calculation. "Doctor Caesar. I'd like an explanation."
"..."
Caesar stared at Doberman.
Then, in the next instant, whatever was going on behind his eyes resolved into pure, undisguised elation.
"FUHEHEHEHEHE! It worked! All of that was a performance?" He erupted into full-volume laughter, floating upward with the sheer force of his self-satisfaction. "Fuhehehehehe! Didn't I tell you? This genius cannot fail!"
"Success, then." Something crept into the CP0 agent's voice despite their composure.
The Five Elders' task had apparently been completed before it had even properly begun.
"More or less what I said." Doberman's voice steadied slightly. "I was turned into this. I made myself appear broken to survive long enough for an opportunity."
Momousagi's voice went quiet.
Very quiet.
"The others." She already knew where this was going. "The two hundred and sixty-eight people who came here with you. That's right, isn't it."
She remembered every one of them precisely. She had divided the forces herself. Some had gone to retrieve Kaido. Some had followed her to the Forest of the Sea. The last group had gone with Doberman. She knew each of them by name and face. People selected alongside her, trained under the same brutal standards, her companions.
"Yes," the monster said. A single nod.
"If they had died on a battlefield, cut down by the enemy," Momousagi said, each word placed with deliberate care, "I would hate myself for not being stronger. I would rage at whoever killed them. But."
The air around her blade had begun to move, invisible oscillations spreading along the flat of the steel.
"What gives you the right," her voice broke open, "to desecrate them like this!"
She became lightning, driving directly toward Caesar.
"Unfortunate, Vice Admiral Momousagi." The CP0 agent's tone carried something that might have been genuine regret. They stepped between her and Caesar in the same instant she moved, body fully committed. "You've just made the worst possible decision."
"You have chosen to make yourself an enemy of the world."
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